EP1377958A1 - Electronic book - Google Patents
Electronic bookInfo
- Publication number
- EP1377958A1 EP1377958A1 EP01918500A EP01918500A EP1377958A1 EP 1377958 A1 EP1377958 A1 EP 1377958A1 EP 01918500 A EP01918500 A EP 01918500A EP 01918500 A EP01918500 A EP 01918500A EP 1377958 A1 EP1377958 A1 EP 1377958A1
- Authority
- EP
- European Patent Office
- Prior art keywords
- book
- thumb
- pad
- displays
- display
- Prior art date
- Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the status listed.)
- Withdrawn
Links
Classifications
-
- G—PHYSICS
- G09—EDUCATION; CRYPTOGRAPHY; DISPLAY; ADVERTISING; SEALS
- G09G—ARRANGEMENTS OR CIRCUITS FOR CONTROL OF INDICATING DEVICES USING STATIC MEANS TO PRESENT VARIABLE INFORMATION
- G09G3/00—Control arrangements or circuits, of interest only in connection with visual indicators other than cathode-ray tubes
- G09G3/20—Control arrangements or circuits, of interest only in connection with visual indicators other than cathode-ray tubes for presentation of an assembly of a number of characters, e.g. a page, by composing the assembly by combination of individual elements arranged in a matrix no fixed position being assigned to or needed to be assigned to the individual characters or partial characters
- G09G3/22—Control arrangements or circuits, of interest only in connection with visual indicators other than cathode-ray tubes for presentation of an assembly of a number of characters, e.g. a page, by composing the assembly by combination of individual elements arranged in a matrix no fixed position being assigned to or needed to be assigned to the individual characters or partial characters using controlled light sources
- G09G3/30—Control arrangements or circuits, of interest only in connection with visual indicators other than cathode-ray tubes for presentation of an assembly of a number of characters, e.g. a page, by composing the assembly by combination of individual elements arranged in a matrix no fixed position being assigned to or needed to be assigned to the individual characters or partial characters using controlled light sources using electroluminescent panels
- G09G3/32—Control arrangements or circuits, of interest only in connection with visual indicators other than cathode-ray tubes for presentation of an assembly of a number of characters, e.g. a page, by composing the assembly by combination of individual elements arranged in a matrix no fixed position being assigned to or needed to be assigned to the individual characters or partial characters using controlled light sources using electroluminescent panels semiconductive, e.g. using light-emitting diodes [LED]
Definitions
- This invention relates to digital data readers and electronic books that emulate the attributes of a printed book, and more particularly, to electronic books that present to the reader the tactile feel, visual appearance, and general physical experience of reading a book that approximate that of a printed book.
- Personal, hand-held digital data readers are known. Some have been devised as electronic books to function as substitutes for the printed book. These readers have attributes of a computer appliance. Known readers sometimes have a single display screen, but others may have two screens that substitute for the facing pages of a book. For example, U.S. Patent No. 5,761,485 to Munyan discloses a personal electronic book system having a hinged electronic book with two touch-screen displays with touch control areas throughout the surfaces of the screens to control the display of information.
- a hand-held digital data reader also termed an electronic book
- Two displays are mounted in two hinged housings so as to open and close relative to each other, and present the reader with the effect of facing pages of a printed book.
- the screens display text and other material in the still position for reading, and also display the effect of turning pages and of leafing through pages at various speeds as controlled by the reader.
- the book When in the open position, the book may be held in one hand or in two hands with the hands and thumbs positioned in the positions commonly used by readers of printed books. The book is also operated with the hands substantially in the same positions.
- the displays are framed in the housings between a free end and hinged spine end.
- Each free end is formed as a thumb pad tapered in the manner of the tapered page edges of a printed book, so that when the book is open the thumb pads taper outwardly and rearwardly.
- the pads serve as resting places for the thumbs when held in the normal position for reading a book, and they also house the controls for controlling the presentation of material to the reader.
- the opposite spine end of the housing are rounded to simulate the rounded appearance of printed pages of an open book.
- the hinge structure connecting the left and right housings are constructed with a traveling pivot point so that the surfaces of the spine ends will maintain contact throughout the opening and closing of the book.
- the invention provides to the book lover and pleasure reader a substitute for the printed book that eliminates characteristics of known electronic readers which have rendered them unacceptable.
- a desireable attribute of the printed book is that the reader always knows how much of the book has been read relative to that still to be read.
- Another embodiment of the invention adds an indicator of amount read, simulating the indication provided by the position of pages of the book.
- the indicator is presented as a part of the thumb pad so as not to appear on the same display as the material to be read.
- FIG. 1 is a pictorial view of the electronic book as positioned for use by a reclining reader
- FIGS. 2(a), 2(b), and 2(c) are pictorial views of the electronic book, respectively showing the positions of the hands and thumbs of the reader, when reading while holding the book with two hands, when reading while holding the book with one hand, and when turning a page;
- FIG. 3 illustrates the electronic book in the open position
- FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating the traveling hinge pivot point
- FIG. 5 is a detailed view of the hinge structure in the closed position
- FIG. 6 is a block diagram of the digital data processing circuitry of the electronic book
- FIG. 7 is a detailed view of a second embodiment of the thumb pad with a place indicator display
- FIG. 8 is a diagram illustrating presentation of the place indicator display in different states.
- the drawings illustrate an electronic book that receives digital data containing the contents of various forms of printed publications, which for convenience will be referred to as "books", from a variety of data input sources.
- the electronic book is powered by an internal power source or by a battery source mounted on a removable mount for ready replacement.
- Two hinged displays open in the manner of two facing pages and display the contents in the still position for reading and also present effects of turning pages and leafing through pages as controlled by the reader.
- the book is held in the manner of a printed book and operated by the thumbs while the book is held with the hands in their common book reading position. Controls are located adjacent to their common book reading position. Controls are located adjacent to rather than on the displays or pages. Information other than the contents of the publication to be read is eliminated from the display representing the page to the extent feasible, so the reader is presented with a replication of the printed page rather than a computer-like display.
- the manner of controlling the presentation of material, and the visual and textural characteristics of parts, are all selected to contribute to the book-like character of the invention, and present a reader with a reading experience approximating that of reading a printed book.
- FIG. 1 Electronic book 1 is shown in FIG. 1 as positioned for use by a reader in the reclining position. Simulated facing pages of the book are provided by left display 4 and right display 5 mounted in left housing 2 and right housing 3, respectively, which are hinged to open in book-like fashion. When reading the book while holding it with two hands, readers rest their thumbs on left thumb pad 8 and right thumb pad 9 with thumbs located in positions commonly used while reading books.
- FIG. 2(a) shows the positioning of the thumbs when the book is held in two hands both during reading and controlling presentation of material.
- the left hand is in common book supporting and opening position
- the right hand is in the common position used during reading, but also for controlling displayed material.
- the book is held in the common one-handed book supporting and opening position in FIG. 2(c).
- left housing 2 and right housing 3 are connected by a hinge means 12.
- Left housing 2 has upper frame portion 6 and lower frame portion 7, while right housing 3 has upper frame portion 14 and lower frame portion 15.
- Opposite left thumb pad 8 at the outer free end of housing 2 is an inner spine end 10.
- Right housing 3 has a corresponding spine end 11.
- Displays 4 and 5 are bounded by the upper and lower frame portions, outer thumb pads and inner spine ends.
- Thumb pads 8 and 9 are tapered outwardly and rearwardly to resemble the tapered page ends of an open printed book, and spine end portions 10 and 11 are rounded to resemble the rounded appearance of bound book pages in the open position.
- Thumb pads 8 and 9 may also be convexly curved along their longitudinal axes for further resembling page ends.
- Each housing has an outer wall, left wall 16 on housing 2, and right wall 17 on housing 3, which may be formed with slight concave curvature as shown, to emulate the shape of a paper-back book.
- Hinge means 12 preferably maintains the surfaces of rounded spine end portions 10 and 11 in contact throughout opening and closing of the book, to maintain the appearance of the printed page.
- the hinge means may include a plurality of springs 13, or other elastic connectors which are anchored in cavities 19 and span the rounded inner end surfaces 18 in sufficient tension to hold the ends together.
- the structure provides a traveling pivot point best illustrated in FIG. 4 for maintaining contact between the rounded ends during opening and complete closing of the book.
- FIG. 4 shows the movement of the pivot point along contact line 20 which diagrammatically represents a pivot plane.
- the pivot point In an open book position A the pivot point is located at point a. In a more closed position B, shown in broken line, the pivot point moves inwardly to position b. When the book is in the completely closed position C, as shown in dotted line, the pivot point moves to position c.
- Housings 2 and 3 may be constructed of metal, such as aluminum, which provides electromagnetic interference shielding. Other materials, such as plastics with interior coating for shielding, may be used. Electronic components are mounted within the housings in conventional fashion. Surface finishes, including for the surfaces of thumb pads 8 and 9, are selected to provide a textural feel that replicates the sensation of holding a printed book.
- the displays may be active matrix LCD, utilizing thin film transistors (TFT) technology, passive matrix LCD using CSTN technology, hybrid passive display (HPD) LCD, high-performance addressing (HP A) LCD, or other displays having low power requirements and viewing characteristics suited to use in electronic books.
- TFT thin film transistors
- HPD hybrid passive display
- HP A high-performance addressing
- left thumb pad 8 has a plurality of touch control areas 26 and a leafing touch control area 27 electronically connected through left pad input 46 to left input controller 41 of the digital data processing means shown as system 40 in the schematic diagram in FIG. 6.
- Thumb pad 9 has corresponding touch control areas 28 and leafing touch control area 29 connected through right pad input 47 to right input controller 42; all the control elements being for the purpose of enabling the reader to control the presentation of material on the displays by action of the thumbs on the thumb pads.
- Left pad input 46 includes conventional touch sensitive input keys 31 associated with control areas 26 and adjusted to respond to slight thumb pressure.
- Pad input 46 also includes control 32 associated with left leafing touch control area 27 to enable the reader to control motion of displayed material by movement of the thumb and also to perform a "click" function by slight tapping by the thumb.
- Control 32 may be a touch pad such as a capacitance-based touch pad with features available from companies such as Synaptics and Cirque Corporation, a resistive membrane touch pad or other touch pad or trackball device or the like.
- Touch control areas 26 are touched to control such actions as display of book title pages for selection of books, page forward, first page display, book marking, and others if desired.
- the left thumb is moved outwardly along the surface of left leafing touch control area 27 at different speeds to control the speed of simulated forward leafing through pages of the displayed material, and the thumb is moved inwardly to control rearward leafing.
- Control of presentation of material on the right display 5 is accomplished with corresponding elements, including right input keys 33 and right touch pad 34.
- the processing means includes an embedded microcomputer system 40 with customized operating system software controlling a CPU, BIOS, ROM, and a RAM providing main memory and computing capability.
- the microprocessor for the microcomputer system may be a generally available microprocessor chip of sufficient speed, available from such companies as Intel and AMD.
- a power source 40 preferably a rechargeable battery source powers the electronic book. It may be mounted internally within one of the housings 2 and 3 and connectable to a conventional AC adapter and charger, or it may be mounted on a removable mount for insertion into the electronic book through power slot 25 (FIG. 3).
- the battery source may be lithium ion batteries, nickel hydride batteries or other batteries used in mobile computing.
- Data constituting the content of books to be digitally processed and displayed is inputted through data input means 45.
- the data input means preferably takes the form of generally available data memory devices such as Small PC Cards meeting PCMCIA standards or other memory storage cards encoded with book content and placed on sale at stores selling books.
- the removable data storage devices are insertable through slot 23.
- data may be received by connection to telephone lines, downloaded from computers, or received from wireless sources of digital information.
- the data may represent content as composited and in the form appearing on the printed page or it may represent content transformed by customized software for processing only by the electronic book of this invention.
- Data from input means 45 which may be data transferred from the removable memory storage card, is stored in an updateable ROM 45, inserted in slot 24.
- ROM 45 may take the form of PCMCIA memory storage cards, EEPROMS, flash memory, or other memory devices having storage capacity for data representing a number of printed books.
- a display controller 50 receives information from microcomputer system 40 and transmits the information to left display 4 and right display 5. Also, a book reader controls display of material through left thumb pad input 46 and right pad input 47 to transmit information through left input controller 41 and right input controller 42 to the corresponding displays.
- the book is opened to open the control circuitry and present material that is inputted through input means 43. If the reader previously has touched a control area to cause a bookmark function, the book- marked pages are displayed. When there has been no bookmark, the display screens display title pages of books or other information to enable the reader to use the thumb to select a book by touching the control area associated with the book selection function. The reader may use the left thumb to display the first page of the selected book by touching the associated touch control area on the left thumb pad 8, and use the right thumb on the right thumb pad 9 to display the last page. When reading the book, the reader uses the left thumb to present a simulation of turning one page forward by touching the associated touch control area.
- the page can also be turned one page backward by touching the associated touch control area on the right thumb pad.
- the left thumb is used to touch the left leafing touch control area 27 to present simulated forward leafing and simulated rearward leafing through the book at a speed controlled by the speed of movement of the thumb. Forward leafing results from thumb movement from the inner end of the thumb pad toward the outer end, and movement in the opposite direction results in simulated rearward leafing.
- On the right thumb pad 9 rearward leafing is simulated by outward movement of the right thumb, and forward leafing results from inner movement.
- a page may be bookmarked by touching the associated touch control area. The turning of the pages and other functions are performed while the hands and thumbs are in the positions normally used to hold a printed book while reading.
- the thumb pads incorporate means for indicating the amount read relative to the amount to be read in a complete book, and for doing so in a manner emulating the corresponding attribute of the printed book.
- FIG. 7 illustrates one specific embodiment, in which tapered left thumb pad 68 and tapered right thumb pad 69 are associated with left housing 62 and right housing 63, respectively.
- Thumb pad 68 has a pad wall 79
- thumb pad 69 has a pad wall 80, each pad wall being formed of a transparent or translucent plastic material, such as PLEXIGLAS plastic or acrylic plastic.
- Thumb pads 68 and 69 each have touch control areas 75 and 77, and leafing control areas 76 and 78 corresponding to touch control areas 26, 28 and leafing control areas 27, 29 of the embodiment of FIG. 3.
- a left pad display 81 is mounted under wall 79
- right display 82 is mounted under wall 80.
- the displays which may be LCD type displays, are positioned and sized to be viewed through pad walls 79 and 80 and to present information occupying substantially the entire length and height of the pad walls.
- the displays each present two bands running the length of the displays, a light colored or white band and a dark colored band, such as light band 83 and dark band 84 in FIG. 7. During the course of their presentation, the bands will vary in width relative to each other to indicate how much has been read.
- the bands In order to understand the use of the bands it is desirable to refer to attributes of a printed book.
- a book When a book is open and the reader is at the beginning of a book, there are no pages or few pages at the left side of the book, and all or most pages are at the right side.
- the stack of pages and page ends increases at the left side and decreases at the right side until all are at the left side.
- the light colored band denotes the appearance of a stack of page ends
- the dark band denotes the absence of page ends
- the presentation of the bands in displays 72, 73 is controlled by the microcomputer system 40 (FIG.
- FIGS. 8(a) through 8(d) The width of a stack of page ends is denoted by the width of light band 83 relative to dark band 84.
- the narrow band 83 indicates that the reader is at the beginning of the book.
- the band 83 in FIG. 8(b) indicates that the reader has read one quarter of the book.
- No dark band 84 is displayed when the reader has read one-half of the book as in FIG. 8(c), and in FIG. 8(d) band 83 indicates the reader has completed three-quarters of the book.
- the indicators in thumb pads 68 and 69 give an indication of the portion completed in the manner of a printed book without adding extraneous information on the face of the page displays presenting the contents of the book.
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- Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
- Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
- Computer Hardware Design (AREA)
- General Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
- Theoretical Computer Science (AREA)
- User Interface Of Digital Computer (AREA)
Abstract
Description
Claims
Applications Claiming Priority (1)
Application Number | Priority Date | Filing Date | Title |
---|---|---|---|
PCT/US2001/007627 WO2002073586A1 (en) | 1998-11-03 | 2001-03-09 | Electronic book |
Publications (2)
Publication Number | Publication Date |
---|---|
EP1377958A1 true EP1377958A1 (en) | 2004-01-07 |
EP1377958A4 EP1377958A4 (en) | 2008-09-10 |
Family
ID=29731289
Family Applications (1)
Application Number | Title | Priority Date | Filing Date |
---|---|---|---|
EP01918500A Withdrawn EP1377958A4 (en) | 2001-03-09 | 2001-03-09 | Electronic book |
Country Status (1)
Country | Link |
---|---|
EP (1) | EP1377958A4 (en) |
Citations (4)
Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
---|---|---|---|---|
EP0390611A2 (en) * | 1989-03-30 | 1990-10-03 | Hiuka Sangyo Kabushiki Kaisha | Electronic book |
US5594619A (en) * | 1990-04-27 | 1997-01-14 | Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba | Portable computer comprising keyboard and coordinate input tablet hingedly connected to a main body case through a junction base having a cylindrical element defining a linear groove therethrough |
US5697793A (en) * | 1995-12-14 | 1997-12-16 | Motorola, Inc. | Electronic book and method of displaying at least one reading metric therefor |
US5909207A (en) * | 1996-08-26 | 1999-06-01 | E-Book Systems Pte Ltd | Browsing system and method for computer information |
-
2001
- 2001-03-09 EP EP01918500A patent/EP1377958A4/en not_active Withdrawn
Patent Citations (4)
Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
---|---|---|---|---|
EP0390611A2 (en) * | 1989-03-30 | 1990-10-03 | Hiuka Sangyo Kabushiki Kaisha | Electronic book |
US5594619A (en) * | 1990-04-27 | 1997-01-14 | Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba | Portable computer comprising keyboard and coordinate input tablet hingedly connected to a main body case through a junction base having a cylindrical element defining a linear groove therethrough |
US5697793A (en) * | 1995-12-14 | 1997-12-16 | Motorola, Inc. | Electronic book and method of displaying at least one reading metric therefor |
US5909207A (en) * | 1996-08-26 | 1999-06-01 | E-Book Systems Pte Ltd | Browsing system and method for computer information |
Non-Patent Citations (1)
Title |
---|
See also references of WO02073586A1 * |
Also Published As
Publication number | Publication date |
---|---|
EP1377958A4 (en) | 2008-09-10 |
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Legal Events
Date | Code | Title | Description |
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PUAI | Public reference made under article 153(3) epc to a published international application that has entered the european phase |
Free format text: ORIGINAL CODE: 0009012 |
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17P | Request for examination filed |
Effective date: 20030929 |
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AK | Designated contracting states |
Kind code of ref document: A1 Designated state(s): AT BE CH CY DE DK ES FI FR GB GR IE IT LI LU MC NL PT SE TR |
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AX | Request for extension of the european patent |
Extension state: AL LT LV MK RO SI |
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A4 | Supplementary search report drawn up and despatched |
Effective date: 20080813 |
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RIC1 | Information provided on ipc code assigned before grant |
Ipc: G06F 1/16 20060101ALI20020924BHEP Ipc: G09G 3/36 20060101ALI20020924BHEP Ipc: G06F 1/16 20060101AFI20080807BHEP |
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17Q | First examination report despatched |
Effective date: 20081121 |
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STAA | Information on the status of an ep patent application or granted ep patent |
Free format text: STATUS: THE APPLICATION IS DEEMED TO BE WITHDRAWN |
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18D | Application deemed to be withdrawn |
Effective date: 20121213 |