Xsides Corporation

Scott J Campbell

Thomas C O'Rourke

D David Nason

David D Nason

A method for creating and accessing a graphical user interface in the overscan area outside the area of the display normally utilized by the common operating systems. This normal display area is generally known as the &ldquo;desktop&rdquo;. The desktop serves as a graphical user interface to the operating system. The desktop displays images representing files, documents and applications available to the user. The desktop is restricted in the common environments to a predetermined set of resolutions (e.g., 640&times;480, 800&times;600, 1024&times;768) as defined by VGA and SVGA standards. Displayable borders outside this area are the overscan area.

Secondary user interface

An alternate display content controller provides a technique for controlling a video display separately from and in addition to the content displayed on the operating system monitor. Where the display is a computer monitor, the alternate display content controller interacts with the computer utility operating system and hardware drivers to control allocation of display space and create and control one or more parallel graphical user interfaces adjacent the operating system desktop. An alternate display content controller may be incorporated in either hardware or software. As software, an alternate display content controller may be an application running on the computer operating system, or may include an operating system kernel of varying complexity ranging from dependent on the utility operating system for hardware system services to a parallel system independent of the utility operating system and capable of supporting dedicated applications. The alternate display content controller may also include content and operating software delivered over the internet or any other LAN. The alternate display content controller may also be included in a television decoder/settop box to permit two or more parallel graphical user interfaces to be displayed simultaneously.

Growing community of inventors

Seattle, WA, United States of America

Scott J Campbell