Patent ID: 8253712

Claim:
An electronic device comprising: a touch sensitive user interface; a contact detector configured to detect a location of contact on a surface of the touch sensitive user interface; a force/deflection detector configured to detect a force/deflection on/of the surface of the touch sensitive user interface using electromagnetic radiation; and a controller coupled to the touch sensitive user interface wherein the controller is configured to provide a first response to the contact on the surface of the touch sensitive user interface when the detected force/deflection is less than a threshold, and to provide a second response to the contact on the surface of the touch sensitive user interface when the detected force/deflection is greater that the threshold, wherein the first and second responses are different, wherein the touch sensitive user interface comprises a liquid crystal display including a liquid crystal material, wherein the liquid crystal display is configured to generate a display output using visible light, wherein the force/deflection detector is configured to detect the force/deflection on/of the surface of the touch sensitive user interface using non-visible electromagnetic radiation, wherein the force/deflection detector includes a selectively reflective layer on the surface of the touch sensitive user interface, wherein the selectively reflective layer is reflective with respect to the non-visible electromagnetic radiation and transmissive with respect to the visible light of the liquid crystal display, an electromagnetic radiation source configured to transmit the non-visible electromagnetic radiation onto the selectively reflective layer; and an electromagnetic radiation detector configured to detect portions of the non-visible electromagnetic radiation reflected from the selectively reflective layer.