Patent ID: 8094673

Claim:
An apparatus for controlling a computing device, comprising: a cable communicatively coupled to the computing device comprising: a signal carrying wire configured to transmit signals from or receive signals at the computing device; a touch/pressure sensitive sensor within the cable configured to detect a plurality of unique touches each having a different respective functionality; and an interface for interfacing with the computing device and interacting with the touch/pressure sensitive sensor to generate a control input for controlling the computing device, the interface comprising: a signal analysis component to analyze the signals from the cable sensitive sensor to determine a first unique touch represented by the signals; and an action translator that translates the signal analysis into the control input, the touch/pressure sensitive sensor including at least a first channel and a second channel, the first channel carrying a high frequency signal that capacitively couples with the second channel when a user exerts pressure to the cable, the second channel delivering the high frequency signal to the signal analysis component only upon capacitive coupling with the first channel, the signal analysis component analyzing the coupled high frequency signal from the second channel.