Today the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Samsung that's designed to advance their S Pen with an all-new capability. The invention allows a stylus to control zooming functionality on the display so that the user doesn't have to perform a finger-based pinch-and-zoom gesture and slow down their workflow on a webpage or document.
According to Samsung, zooming in or out of a display may be difficult or inconvenient when using a stylus. When a user with a stylus wishes to zoom in or out of a screen, the user may be required to stop using the stylus and make multiple touches on the screen with his or her fingers (touching the screen using two different fingers). Therefore, when a user wants to zoom in using his or her fingers, the user may need to hold the stylus oddly or place the stylus down so that they could use a pinch-and-zoom gesture on the display. This is what Samsung's invention remedies so that the user never has to put the pen down while working as the new zooming functionality is built into a powerful new system.
One aspect of Samsung's invention is to provide a method of zooming in or out a screen by using a new feature of the stylus that bypasses the need to your fingers in the traditional way.
Samsung's patent FIG. 2 noted below is a flowchart illustrating an example method for enlarging and reducing a screen
The Hover State
Samsung's patent FIGS. 3A and FIG. 3B illustrate a working example of a hovering state.
The Zoom Guide
In respect to Samsung Patent FIG. 4B noted below, Samsung notes that a controller may display a zoom guide and the hovering mark while displaying the web page. The zoom guide may comprise a zoom in guide for enlargement and a zoom out guide for reduction. In FIG. 4B, the zoom in guide #401 is displayed in a direction toward an upper end of a screen, and the zoom out guide #402 is displayed in a direction toward a lower end of the screen.
The zoom guide with the hovering mark as a center point may be configured with a circle having a predetermined size, and may be divided into two equal parts, namely, an upper end portion and a lower end portion. The upper and lower end portions may be divided using the direction in which data is displayed in the device, a location of the user, and/or the location and the angle of the stylus. The upper and lower end portions may be generally divided based on the direction in which the data is displayed.
The example above shows a "+" mark indicating enlargement may be added to an internal area or external adjacent area of the zoom in guide. Furthermore, a "-" mark indicating reduction may be added to an internal area or external adjacent area of the zoom out guide.
In addition, to easily distinguish between enlargement and reduction, appropriate colors indicating enlargement and reduction may be added to an interior of the zoom in guide #401 and the zoom out guide #402. The appropriate colors may be any desired color. For example, red-based colors may be displayed to indicate enlargement and blue-based colors may be displayed to indicate reduction.
Once the user raises the stylus in a hover state as noted in patent FIG. 3A/B above, they then push a switch on the stylus which is noted as being #312 in patent FIG. 4B above. This triggers the zoom guide to be presented to the user on the display as noted above. The switch could then be moved forward or backwards to control the zoom in or out function.
Samsung filed their U.S. patent application back in August 2014. Considering that this is a patent application, the timing of such a product to market is unknown at this time.
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