Patent Document ID: 9551590
Application ID: 12550128

Base Claim:
1. A method of receiving input into a vehicle from a user, said method comprising the steps of: providing a surface within reach of a hand of the user; sensing a plurality of locations on the surface that are touched by the user; determining an alphanumeric character having a shape most similar to the plurality of touched locations on the surface; transmitting an input to an electronic system of the vehicle, the input being dependent upon the determined alphanumeric character; informing the user of the alphanumeric character and/or a word in which the alphanumeric character is included; and receiving feedback from the user regarding whether the alphanumeric character and/or word is an alphanumeric character and/or word that the user intended to be determined in the determining step, wherein the sensing and determining steps are repeated until a word formed by the alphanumeric characters is identified, the informing step comprising audibly or visually informing the user of the identified word.

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Claim 2:
2. The method of claim 1 wherein the surface includes a grid of cells, the sensing step including ascertaining which cells of the surface are touched by the user, the determining step comprising using a lookup table or algorithm relating the ascertained touched cells to the determined alphanumeric character.