Extending the touchable area of a touch screen beyond the borders of the screen

Abstract

A touchable area of a user interface (such as that displayed on a touch screen touchpad or trackpad), i.e., the locations where the user may place their finger in order to initiate an action, can be extended beyond the border of the screen or device through the use of remote sensors that can detect when, for example, a finger or object is present at a specific location in 3-D space relative to the device. Sensors exist to perform this detection and are typically based on one or more of optical detection (for example infrared), acoustic detection (for example, via high frequency echo location), ultrasonic detection, inductive detection, capacitive detection, and in general can be based on any type of opto, opto-electronic, electrical and/or electro-mechanical sensor technology.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.