METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR CONTROLLING A KEYPAD OF A DEVICE

• Main Authors: CAINE, MICHAEL E, ROBINSON, WILLIAM N, ARNESON, THEODORE R
• Format: Patent
• Language: English; French; German
• Published: 11.09.2013
• Subjects: CALCULATING; COMPUTING; COUNTING; ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE; ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING; ELECTRICITY; PHYSICS; TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION; TRANSMISSION

A device (2600) includes a controllable skin texture (2606) defining a keypad (2610), a sensor (2602), and control logic (200). The sensor senses a proximity of a pointing element (2900) to a particular key (2800, 2808, 2902, 2908) of the keypad based on a user input. The control logic adjusts a height of the particular key with respect to another key of the keypad in response to the sensor sensing the proximity of the pointing element to the particular key. In one example, the device includes a display (2700) for displaying a plurality of keys (2612). The control logic adjusts visual characteristics of the particular key (2800, 2808, 2902, 2908) and an adjacent key (2802, 2810, 2904, 2910) with respect to each other and with respect to other keys of the plurality of keys in response to the sensor sensing the proximity of the pointing element to the particular key.