Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Connor Lawrence Weins

David Abzarian

Xiao Tu

Jerry K Koh

Krishnan Menon

Christian Klein

Robert Disano

Fei Su

Olumuyiwa M Durojaiye

Katherine Blair Huffman

Austin Bradley Hodges

Patrick Jee-An Poon

Yibo Sun

Fei Xiong

Sammy Chiu

Robert Joseph Disano

Methods and apparatuses are provided that address interoperability limitations of current digital pens and touch sensitive devices. In aspects, methods are provided for operating an adaptable digital pen and touch sensitive device to determine the best means for pen state information such as pressure information to be transferred from the pen to the device. A digital pen includes multiple communication interfaces to permit wide compatibility with touch sensitive devices. A communication interface is provided that enables the digital pen to communicate via an active pen protocol with a digitizer of the touch sensitive device while operating in a first mode. Another communication interface is provided as an alternative channel for communicating pen state information to the touch sensitive device while operating in a second mode. Where neither such interface suffices for communicating pen state information to the touch sensitive device, the digital pen may operate in a reflective capacitive mode.

Adaptable digital pen and touch sensitive device

Features of the present disclosure solve the above-identified problem by implementing techniques to detect the contact or proximity of a stylus to a display screen of a computer device in the absence of pressure information within the constraints of existing pen protocols. To this end, a digitizer associated with the display screen of the computer device may determine when the stylus is touching (or significantly close) the screen when a signal communication between the pen and digitizer exceeds a threshold (e.g., time or voltage).

Mechanism for pen interoperability with pressure sensor design

Techniques for configuration of primary and secondary displays are described. In one or more implementations, an apparatus such as a mobile device includes multiple interconnected display devices that can be configured in different ways, such as output primary, input primary, sensor primary, and so forth. At least one implementation enables different zones of a single display surface to be configured as primary and secondary for different purposes, such as input and/or output.

Configuration of primary and secondary displays

A computing device including a capacitive touch screen and a processor configured to receive a capacitive image from the capacitive touch screen, determine that the capacitive image includes an image of a capacitive tag, identify a pattern of capacitive elements of the capacitive tag based on the capacitive image, determine bits of encoded data based on the identified pattern of capacitive elements, and process the encoded data.

Encoding data in capacitive tags

A platform-level container configured to hold natively-supported ink stroke data structures is maintained. The platform-level container is accessible to a plurality of different applications. An ink stroke visual corresponding to each ink stroke data structure held by the platform-level container is rendered via a display. An ink stroke change event corresponding to an ink stroke data structure held by the platform-level container is recognized. The ink stroke data structure is changed to an updated ink stroke data structure in accordance with the ink stroke change event. An ink stroke visual corresponding to the updated ink stroke data structure is rendered via the display without re-rendering ink stroke visuals corresponding to unchanged ink stroke data structures.

Ink stroke editing and manipulation

A facility for processing ink input is described. In one example facility, the facility receives ink input from an input device. The facility generates and renders ink stroke data structures in response to received ink input in accordance with an ink input processing pipeline. The facility provides to an executing application access to information traversing the ink input processing pipeline at a selected point in the ink input processing pipeline.

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Bellevue, WA, United States of America

Connor Lawrence Weins