Touchscreen iPods?
p2pnet.net News:- Are touch-screen controls strictly past tense?
Apple Computer apparently doesn’t think so and an iPod, “with touch-screen capability that would enable the user to switch back and forth between music-player and camera modes” may be on the way, says ZDNet.
Under Electronic Device Having Display and Surrounding Touch Sensitive Bezel for User Interface and Control, “An electronic device has a display and has a touch sensitive bezel surrounding the display,” says the abstract, listing Nick King, Duncan Kerr, Paul Herbst and Steven P. Hotelling as the inventors, and continuing:
Areas on the bezel are designated for controls used to operate the electronic device. Visual guides corresponding to the controls are displayed on the display adjacent the areas of the bezel designated for the controls. Touch data is generated by the bezel when a user touches an area of the bezel. The device determines which of the controls has been selected based on which designated area is associated with the touch data from the bezel. The device then initiates the determined control. The device can have a sensor for determining the orientation of the device. Based on the orientation, the device can alter the areas designated on the bezel for the controls and can alter the location of the visual guides for the display so that they match the altered areas on the bezel.
The patent doesn’t specifically say the application is targeted for use in a media player, but, “it does include various potential diagrams of portable devices that could use the technology, and buried in there is a portable media player,” says TG Daily.
“According to the patent, controls would be handled outside of the main display, as opposed to a point-and-click, stylus-based application. ‘For example, the user controls of the bezel can be configured so that one side of the bezel controls brightness with a touch and drag motion by the user, while the other side of the bezel controls contrast with a touch and drag motion by the user. Thus, using both of these sides of the bezel, the user can simultaneously adjust both the contrast and the brightness of the display using touch and drag motions on the sides of the bezel,’ it says in the patent.”
Also See:
ZDNet – New Apple Patent art I show you here may point to iPod with camera , October 29, 2006
TG Daily – Touchscreen Ipod on the way?, October 27, 2006
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