Patent EA-004128-B1 (EA)
Title: Touch-typable devices based on ambiguous codes and methods to design such devices
Inventor: GUTOWITZ HOWARD ANDREW
IPC: H03M11/04
Filed: 1999-12-09
Abstract: 1. A typable device comprising: an input mechanism responsive to user manipulation to generate sequences of encoding symbols; a strongly touch typable ambiguous code mechanism which maps the sequences of encoding symbols to sequences of decoding symbols; and an output mechanism which selectively outputs sequences of decoding symbols in response to user manipulation of said input mechanism. 2. The typable device of claim 1 wherein said strongly touch typable ambiguous code mechanism is substantially physically distant from said input mechanism, and further comprising a communicator to communicate signals generated by said input mechanism to said ambiguous code mechanism whereby said signals are put in correspondence with said sequences of encoding symbols and mapped to said sequences of decoding signals by said ambiguous code mechanism. 3. The typable device of claim 1 wherein said strongly touch typable ambiguous code is an optimized ambiguous code, optimized with respect to ergonomic criterion including at least one of query rate, lookup error, anatomic fidelity, physiological fidelity, partition structure, conservation of convention, crossplatform compatibility, regularity of layout, and scan time. 4. The typable device of claim 3 wherein said optimized ambiguous code is substantially optimal. 5. The typable device of claim 3 wherein one of said optimized ergonomic criteria is coherence with convention, wherein said coherence with convention is the standard association of alphanumeric symbols with the input mechanism of a standard telephone keypad, said standard association of alphanumeric symbols with input means comprising an association of non-letter symbols with a first plurality of a 4 non-letter inputs, and letter symbols with a second plurality of 8 letter and non-letter inputs. 6. The typable device of claim 5 wherein at least one other of said optimized ergonomic criteria is selected from the group consisting of query rate, lookup error, anatomic fidelity, and physiological fidelity, and wherein the typable device further comprises at least one chording input device, the at least one chording input device being an auxiliary input and said non-letter input device conventionally associated with the symbols 0, 1, *, and #, said chording input device being operable in sequence or in substantial simultaneity with an input selected from said second plurality of inputs associated with letter symbols such that a subset of the letter symbols associated with said inputs is associated with an encoding symbol of said ambiguous code. 7. The typable device of claim 6 wherein operation of one of said letter and non-letter inputs alone associates a subset of corresponding letters with encoding symbols, while operation of the same letter and non-letter input in combination with at least one of said chording input device associates a subset of other letters associated with said one of said letter and non-letter input means with another encoding symbol of said ambiguous code. 8. The typable device of claim 7 wherein operation of at least one of said chording device with one of said letter and non-letter inputs associates one of a plurality of single letters from said corresponding letters with a corresponding encoding symbol. 9. The typable device of claim 8 wherein the plurality of single letters are C, E, H, L, N, S, T, Y respectively for said letter and non-letter input devices conventionally labelled 2 through 9. 10. The typable device of claim 1 further comprising a first subset of primary inputs and a second subset of secondary inputs, and wherein said ambiguous code is a multi-level ambiguous code wherein a first activation of one of said secondary inputs selects a first subset of decoding symbols, and a second activation of one of said secondary inputs selects a second subset of decoding symbols. 11. A typable device comprising a plurality of inputs including a plurality of statistically significant symbol inputs for encoding a plurality of statistically significant symbols, said plurality of statistically significant symbol inputs being of cardinality less than the cardinality of said plurality of statistically significant symbols whereby at least one of the members of said plurality of statistically significant symbol inputs is set in correspondence to more than one of said statistically significant symbols, and wherein said correspondence is chosen such that said typable device is strongly touch typable. 12. The typable device of claim 11 wherein said correspondence satisfies at least one ergonomic criteria including query rate, lookup error, anatomic fidelity, physiological fidelity, partition structure, and wherein coherence with convention of said correspondence is substantially optimal. 13. The typable device of claim 1 wherein said strongly touch typable ambiguous code mechanism has a query rate of at least 10 words per query and a lookup rate of at least 100 words per lookup, relative to statistics drawn from a corpus of text which is substantially representative of the language and contains at least 10 million words. 14. The typable device of claim 1 wherein said input mechanism has a substantially qwerty-like layout. 15. The typable device of claim 1 wherein said input mechanism is embedded in an vehicular steering wheel, whereby said typable device may be used by the driver while driving. 16. The typable device of claim 1 wherein said strongly touch typable code has a substantially alphabetic layout. 17. The typable device of claim 1 wherein said strongly touch typable code is simultaneously strongly touch typable with respect to more than one language. 18. The typable device of claim 1 wherein said strongly touch typable code has at least one of query rate and lookup rate within 5 percent of the best possible code for a given number of inputs. 19. The typable device of claim 1 further comprising a touch screen, said touch screen including said input mechanism and wherein said decoding symbols associated with each of said inputs are selectively transparent. 20. The typable device of claim 1 further comprising a mechanism to relate the location of said device on a surface to locations on a computer display, and wherein the decoding symbols associated to each of said inputs are a function of said locations on said computer display. 21. The typable device of claim 20 further comprising a thumb actuatable input, a palm grip, and a display, said thumb actuatable input being effective to input unambiguous symbols, said palm grip permitting said typable device to be moved along a surface by pressure from the palm while the hand is in a comfortable position for typing, and said display being effective to display the set of symbols currently associated with said input. 22. The typable device of claim 1 further comprising four substantially same-sized, substantially flat portions, each of said portions being foldably connected to each other, whereby said typable device is twice folded. 23. The typable device of claim 1 wherein a subset of said input mechanism is of cardinality 13, and said strongly touch typable analogous mechanism code maps at least two of the letters a-z to each of said subset of inputs, whereby said typable device may be typed with one hand using substantially the same gestures as when typing using a related unambiguous typable device typable using two hands. 24. The typable device of claim 23 wherein the assignment of said decoding symbols to said inputs is such that said assignment admits a substantially physiologically optimal layout. 25. The typable device of claim 1 wherein said inputs are laid out in standard numeric keypad format. 26. The typable device of claim 1 wherein said strongly touch typable ambiguous code mechanism is a multi-level ambiguous code mechanism. 27. The typable device of claim 26 further comprising a plurality of primary inputs and wherein said multi-level ambiguous code mechanism comprises a first-level ambiguous code and a second-level ambiguous code, wherein a first manipulation of one of said primary inputs selects an encoding symbol drawn from said first-level ambiguous code and a second manipulation of one of said primary input means selects an encoding symbol drawn from said second-level ambiguous code. 28. The typable device of claim 27 wherein said typable device is a hand-held typable device and said plurality of primary inputs is of cardinality 4 whereby said primary inputs are in one-to-one correspondence with the fingers of a user's hand holding said device. 29. The typable device of claim 28 further comprising a plurality of displays, each of said plurality of displays being associated with one of said primary inputs, each of said plurality of displays being operative to display the decoding symbols of said first-level and second-level ambiguous codes. 30. The typable device of claim 29 wherein said multi-level ambiguous code mechanism is optimized with respect to lookup error and query error, said first-level code is optimized with respect to alphabetic ordering, and said second-level code is optimized with respect to substantial alphabetic ordering, and evenness of partition. 31. The typable device of claim 30 further comprising an unambiguous input, said unambiguous input being operative to unambiguously select one of said decoding symbols of said second-level ambiguous code. 32. The typable device of claim 29 wherein at least one most probable decoding symbol is displayed first in order on at least one of said display whereby scan time is reduced, and wherein said at least one most probable symbol is displayed in a way that is visually distinct from other less probable decoding symbols. 33. The typable device of claim 26 further comprising a plurality of secondary inputs, manipulation of said secondary inputs being operative to generate unambiguously coded symbols. 34. A method for creating a typable device comprising the steps of: selecting