TECHNICAL TIELD

5 The pi esent invention relates to zooming in and/or out a portion of a content of a display of a digital device

BACKGROUND

10 Hand held devices, such as mobile phones, digital cameras, and pocket computers with graphical usei interfaces have become increasingly popular in recent years The most common example of a pocket computer is a smart phone, which may be embodied in various different forms ϊj' Commonly hand held devices are also ptovided with cameras for recording and viewing images

The gi aphical display is typically touch-sensitive and may be operated by way of a pointing tool such as a stylus, pen oi a user's finger Other devices iely more on a touch 20 sensitive display as the main input device and have thus dispensed with a hardware keyboatd

The hand held device used as mobile terminals, i e in addition to providing typical pocket computer services such as calendar, word processing and games, they may also be used 25 in conjunction with a mobile telecommunications system for services like voice calls, fax transmissions, electronic messaging, Internet browsing, etc

It is well known in the field that because of the noticeably limited resources of pocket computers, in terms of physical size, display size, data processing power and input 0 device, compared to laptop or desktop computers, user interface solutions known from laptop or desktop computers are generally not applicable or relevant for pocket computers One example is enlarging or zooming parts of a content using a point device by choosing an area It is generally desired to provide improvements to the usei interface of such pocket computers so as to enhance the user friendliness and improve the user's efficiency when using the pocket computer In computers in genei al, and in pocket computei s in particular, there is a need to navigate through content which is laigei than what can be displayed on the current display This is especially apparent when using a web browser application on a pocket computer, as web pages are usually designed to be displayed on normal computer displays being considerably larger than the displays of pocket computers

In summary, a problem with the prior art in this respect is how to efficiently and intuitively zoom a portion of a displayed content on a hand-held device such as a pocket computer or a mobile communication device, in a simple but efficient manner without use of advanced hardware and complex software

SUMMARY

Consequently there is a need for an invention allowing a user to conveniently and safely zoom in (enlarge) and zoom out (reduce size) of at least a poi lion of a display content

Foi these reasons a digital display zooming method is pi ovided foi enlarging oi reducing scale of a displayed digital content within a display of a device The display has a touch sensitive portion reactive to a pointing means, wherein operation of a designating part in foi m of a time specific touch on a point with the pointing means designate an enlarging operation or a reducing operation of the displayed portion of the digital content within the display screen The enlarging or reducing operation is limited to a predetermined boundary The predetermined boundary has a centre at the point The enlarging or reducing operation is based to number of touches of the touch sensitive portion The invention also relates to a device comprising a touch sensitive digital display and a controller, wherein the controller is configured to receive a signal from the display and if the touch corresponds to a scale altering touch, alter scale of a content on the display The device may further comprise a transceiver mechanism enabling the device to communicate with other devices or systems The device of may be incorporated in one of a mobile terminal or telephone, a digital media player, a camera, a personal digital assistant or a computer

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Reference is made to the attached drawings wherein elements having the same reference number designation may represent like elements throughout

Fig 1 is a diagram of an exemplary system in which methods and systems described herein may be implemented,

Figs 2 and 3 illustrate a schematic display according to the invention, and

Fig 4 is a flow diagram illustrating exemplary ptocessing by the system of Fig 1

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The following detailed description of the invention refers to the accompanying drawings The same reference numbers in different drawings identify the same or similar elements Also the following detailed description does not limit the invention Instead, the scope of the invention is defined by the appended claims and equivalents

Fig 1 is a diagram of an exemplary system 100 in which methods and systems described herein may be implemented System 100 may include a bus 1 10, a processor 120, a memory 130, a read only memory (ROM) 140 a storage device 150, an input device 160, an output device 170, and a communication interface 180 Bus 1 10 permits

communication among the components of system 100 System 100 may also include one or more power supplies (not shown) One skilled in the art would recognize that system 100 may be configured in a number of other ways and may include other or different elements

Processor 120 may include any type of processor or microprocessor that interprets and executes instructions Processor 120 may also include logic that is able to decode media files, such as audio files, video files, multimedia files, image files, video games, etc , and generate output to, for example, a speaker, a display, etc Memory 130 may include a random access memory (RAM) or another dynamic storage device that stores information and instructions for execution by processor 120 Memory 130 may also be used to store temporary variables oi other intei mediate infoi mation dm ing execution of instructions by processor 120

ROM 140 may include a conventional ROM device and/or another static storage device that stores static information and instructions foi processor 120 Storage device 150 may include a magnetic disk or optical disk and its corresponding drive and/or some other type of magnetic or optical recording medium and its corresponding drive for storing information and instructions Storage device 150 may also include a flash memory (e g , an electrically erasable programmable read only memory (EEPROM)) device for storing information and instructions Input device 160 may include one or more conventional mechanisms that permit a user to input information to system 100, such as a keyboard, a keypad a directional pad, a mouse, a pen voice recognition, a touch scieen and/or biometπc mechanisms, etc Output device 170 may include one or moie conventional mechanisms that output information to the usei , including a display a printer one or more speakers, etc

Communication interface 180 may include any transceiver-like mechanism that enables system 100 to communicate with other devices and/or systems For example, communication interface 180 may include a modem or an Ethernet interface to a LAN Alternatively, or additionally, communication interface 180 may include other mechanisms for communicating via a network, such as a wneless network For example,

communication interface may include a radio frequency (RF) transmitter and receiver and one or more antennas for transmitting and receiving RF data

System 100, consistent with the invention, provides a platform through which a user may play and/or view various media, such as music files, video files, image files, games, multimedia files, etc System 100 may also display information associated with the media played and/or viewed by a user of system 100 in a graphical format, as described in detail below According to an exemplary implementation, system 100 may perform various processes in response to processor 120 executing sequences of instructions contained in memory 130 Such instructions may be read into memory 130 from another computer- readable medium, such as storage device 150, or from a separate device via communication interface 180 It should be understood that a computer-readable medium may include one or more memory devices or carrier waves Execution of the sequences of instructions contained in memory 130 causes processor 120 to perform the acts that will be described hereafter In alternative embodiments hard-wired circuit! y may be used in place of or in combination with software instructions to implement aspects consistent with the invention Thus, the invention is not limited to any specific combination of hardware circuitry and software

Fig 2 illustrates a touch screen 1601 of the system 100 as an input device The touch screen may be a conventional type well known to a skilled person

A basic touch screen may have three main components a touch sensor, a controller, and a software driver A touch screen sensor may have a touch responsive surface There are several different touch sensor technologies on the market today, each using a different method to detect touch input Commonly the sensor generally has an electrical current or signal going through it and touching the screen causes a voltage or signal change This voltage change is used to detei mine the location of the touch to the screen A controllei obtains information fiom the touch sensoi and translates it into infoi mation that, e g processor 120 can understand In one embodiment the controller and the processor 120 may be integrated

According to the invention when a point 1602 is 'tapped on the screen 1601 , the controller translates it to a tap and a signal is sent to the processor 120 The tap is interpreted as a zooming (in/out) function The interpretation may of course be application dependent such that the processor uses this function for zooming in one application, e g displaying an image, and as another function in another application

The terms "tap" and "tapping" used in this application implies touching a portion of the screen in a specific amount of time and/or pressure, predetermined, e g in the controller program The tapping may be just touching the screen and lifting the finger or stylus (or any other device) immediately or keep touching the same portion of the screen in a period

The terms "zooming in" and "zooming out" as used in this application implies increasing scale and decreasing scale of an image/content displayed on the display The application may be pre-progi ammed to use a boundary for the zooming, i e zooming area 1603 illustrated in Fig 2 with a dashed line Substantially, all the content in the zooming aiea is enlarged oi reduced The zooming area may be predetei mined to one or several of shapes such as a rectangle circle ellipse, etc Normally the boundary is not visible for the user However in one embodiment the zooming area may be visible for a user and allow altering the zooming area size

When the tapping signal is received and the processor determines that the application running on the system is related to the tapping function, a zooming process starts, which enlarges a portion of the display content 1604 This is illustrated in Fig 3, in which the zooming area 1603 is enlarged to substantially cover the entire display 1601 area

To reverse the zooming function, the system may be arranged to sense other types of tapping e g double tapping in which case the system reduces (or enlarges) the zooming area size to original size or an intei mediate size which can be predetermined

Fig 4 is a flow diagi am illustrating exemplary processing by system 100 Processing may start when the system 100 powers up Assume that the user of system 100 has a content displayed, such as an image (still or moving) The image data may be stored on, foi example, a storage device oi memoiy 150

In one implementation, assume that system 100 displays a sign as in Fig 2 In this implementation pi ocessoi 120 may identify infoi mation associated with the picture When a user taps on the screen the controller senses 401 the touch type By, for example, comparing a timing table stored in the memory of the controller or system, or sending timing information to the processor 120 to look up the touch type, type of the touching is determined 402 If it is determined that a zooming (in/out) tapping is applied, the processor instructs 403 the display driver to recalculate and output image memory content corresponding to the zooming within the zooming area

In addition, the graphical representations provided to a user may represent content retrieved locally from system 100 In some implementations, the content may represent content accessed from an external device, such as a server accessible to system 100 via, for example, a network Further, while series of acts have been described with respect to Fig 4, the ordei of the acts may be varied in other implementations consistent with the invention Moreover, non dependent acts may be performed in parallel

It will also be apparent to one of ordinaiy skill in the art that aspects of the invention as described above, may be implemented in any device/system capable of displaying a content using a touch sensitive screen For example in the implementation described above with respect to Figs 1 -4, aspects of the invention may be implemented in a mobile terminal/telephone, such as a cellular telephone In addition, aspects of the invention may be implemented in a digital media player, a camera, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a computer or any other device with content displaying and touch screen capability Aspects of the invention may also be implemented in methods and/or computer program products Accordingly, the invention may be embodied in hardware and/ot in software (including firmware resident software, micf o-code etc ) Furthei more, the invention may take the form of a computet program pi oduct on a compulet-usable ot computei-readable storage medium having computer- usable oi computer-readable program code embodied in the medium for use by oi in connection with an instruction execution system The actual software code or specialized conti ol hardware used to implement aspects consistent with the principles of the invention is not limiting of the invention Thus, the operation and behavior of the aspects were described without reference to the specific software code--ιt being understood that one of oi dinary skill in the ait would be able to design software and control hardware to implement the aspects based on the description herein

Further, certain portions of the invention may be implemented as "logic" that performs one or more functions This logic may include hardware, such as a processor, a

microprocessor, an application specific integrated circuit or a field programmable gate array, software or a combination of hardware and software

It should be emphasized that the term "comprises/comprising" when used in this specification is taken to specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps, or components, but does not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, components, or groups thereof No element act or instruction used in the description of the present application should be construed as critical or essential to the invention unless explicitly described as such Also as used herein the aiticle 'a' is intended to include one or more items Whei e only one item is intended, the term One" or similar language is used Furthei , the phrase "based on," as used herein is intended to mean "based, at least in part on ¹ unless explicitly stated otherwise

The scope of the invention is defined by the claims and their equivalents