Microphone on controller with touchpad to take in audio swipe feature data

Abstract

A game controller includes a touchpad that a user, viewing a virtual keyboard on a screen, can soft-touch to move a cursor on the screen and then hard-touch to move the cursor and also send location data to a processor for inputting a letter from the virtual keyboard. A microphone on the touchpad can be used to receive voice signals for training a machine learning module to predict a next letter or next word, or to insert special characters/punctuations/graphics such as “smileys” during the swipe, or to indicate a tone of a Chinese character while typing with Chinese Pinyin.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . An apparatus, comprising:
 at least one computer storage that is not a transitory signal and that comprises instructions executable by at least one processor to:   identify a first touch event as a soft event;   responsive to identifying the first touch event as a soft event, move a screen cursor on a display to a first location on a virtual keyboard without indicating selection of a key on the virtual keyboard to the display;   identify a second touch event as a hard event;   responsive to identifying the second touch event as a hard event, indicate selection of a key of the virtual keyboard to the display.   
     
     
         2 . The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein a user can look away from a touchpad on which the first and second touch events are received and view the virtual keyboard on the display while moving a finger across the touchpad to move the cursor to a desired letter on the virtual keyboard, and then exert a hard event to select the letter desired. 
     
     
         3 . The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the instructions are executable to:
 present on the display a next most possible word responsive to a swipe established by a continuous hard event forming a trace.   
     
     
         4 . The apparatus of  claim 3 , wherein the instructions are executable to:
 highlight on the display a hot key based on a heatmap; and   highlight the trace.   
     
     
         5 . The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the instructions are executable to:
 responsive to determining that the soft event is an initial soft event within a threshold of period, enlarge the virtual keyboard on the display.   
     
     
         6 . The apparatus of  claim 3 , wherein the instructions are executable to:
 discount and accumulate points of the swipe and probabilities of each letter at time intervals along the swipe; and   extract for presentation on the display a letter with a highest probability.   
     
     
         7 . The apparatus of  claim 1 , comprising the at least one processor and the display. 
     
     
         8 . A method, comprising:
 identifying a first touch event as a soft event;   responsive to identifying the first touch event as a soft event, moving a screen cursor on a display to a first location on a virtual keyboard without indicating selection of a key on the virtual keyboard to the display;   identifying a second touch event as a hard event;   responsive to identifying the second touch event as a hard event, indicating selection of a key of the virtual keyboard to the display.   
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 8 , wherein a user can look away from a touchpad on which the first and second touch events are received and view the virtual keyboard on the display while moving a finger across the touchpad to move the cursor to a desired letter on the virtual keyboard, and then exert a hard event to select the letter desired. 
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 8 , comprising:
 presenting on the display a next most possible word responsive to a swipe established by a continuous hard event forming a trace.   
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 10 , comprising:
 highlighting on the display a hot key based on a heatmap; and   highlighting the trace.   
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 8 , comprising:
 responsive to determining that the soft event is an initial soft event within a threshold of period, enlarge the virtual keyboard on the display.   
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 10 , comprising:
 discount and accumulate points of the swipe and probabilities of each letter at time intervals along the swipe; and   extract for presentation on the display a letter with a highest probability.