Inquiry-oriented user input apparatus and method
AssigneeZi Corporation of Canada, Inc.
InventorsWeigen QIU, Roland E. Williams, William J. Templeton-Steadman
Life of this patent
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Abstract
User input from a reduced keypad is disambiguated and compared with a first dynamic lexicon, and predicted matches (e.g. either a single word or phrase) are offered. If a user continues to type beyond a boundary condition, then input is no longer predicted from the first lexicon, but instead is interpreted as a request for matches from a second, quasi-static lexicon allowing words or phrases to be entered. When the entry is accepted, data is transmitted to a remote receiver and may be parsed as an inquiry for subsequent operation. Following acceptance, the apparatus invokes a program suitable for interacting with the response generated to the inquiry.
Claims8
A personal appliance, comprising:
- a display;
- a keypad having keys, at least some of the keys allowing for the entry of more than one symbol with a single press of the key in order to provide an ambiguous indication;
- a microprocessor having the ability to receive ambiguous indications from the keypad, and programmed to:
- (i) identify entries from one or more databases, the entries corresponding to the ambiguous indications;
- (ii) provide the entries from the one or more databases to a user via the display;
- (iii) once the number of entries provided to the user reaches (or is below) a threshold number of entries, an additional database is searched for entries corresponding to the ambiguous indications, and the corresponding entries from the additional database are displayed to the user for selection.
A personal appliance, comprising:
- a display;
- a keypad having keys, at least some of the keys allowing for the entry of more than one symbol with a single press of the key in order to provide an ambiguous indication;
- a microprocessor having the ability to receive ambiguous indications from the keypad, and programmed to:
- (i) identify entries from a dynamic database that is maintained by a service provider and identify entries from a dictionary database stored on the personal appliance, the entries corresponding to the ambiguous indications;
- (ii) provide the entries from at least one of the databases to a user via the display, wherein the user may select whether to receive entries from only one of the databases, or both databases.
- (iii) accept from the user a selection of one of the provided entries.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.