Method and system for extending touch-sensing functionality of a touch screen with proximally positioned physical keys

A computing device for interacting with a user, comprising:

• a touch-sensing enabled display panel comprising one or more touch sensors for sensing an on-screen touch on the display panel to generate on-screen touch-sensing signals;
• one or more physical keys being positioned adjacent to edges of the display panel and configured to serve as off-screen keys for sensing an off-screen touch to generate off-screen touch-sensing signals;
• and
• a processor configured to be communicable with the display panel and the physical keys, to receive and analyze the on-screen touch-sensing signals and off-screen touch-sensing signals for identifying a touch gesture;
• wherein the identifying of the touch gesture comprises:
• a) determining an on-screen touch time from the on-screen touch-sensing signals;
• b) determining an off-screen touch time from the off-screen touch-sensing signals;
• c) determining whether the touch gesture is a directional movement by comparing a time difference between the on-screen touch time and the off-screen touch time to a maximum threshold and a minimum threshold, wherein the touch gesture is determined to be a directional movement between the display panel and the physical keys when the time difference is less than the maximum threshold and larger than the minimum threshold;
• and
• d) determining direction of the directional movement, when the touch gesture is determined to be a directional movement between the display panel and the physical keys, in accordance with sequence of occurrence of the on-screen touch and the off-screen touch;
• and
• wherein the processor comprises a multiplexing and summing network (MSN) for performing multiplexing and summing on the on-screen touch-sensing signals received from the display panel to produce one or more output-channel signals, wherein the multiplexing and the summing are reconfigurable such that touch-sensing signals are dynamically selected for summing to produce combinations of the output-channel signals adaptive to various graphical user interface.