Hand-held with auto-zoom for graphical display of web page

Abstract

A mobile phone has a display with a touch screen. The device has a browser and is capable of retrieving a Web page from the Internet. The page is first displayed in its entirety. The user can recognize the page's general lay-out and presence of hyperlinks. When the user touches a particular location on the touch screen that corresponds to a portion of the page's image, the portion gets displayed so as to fill the display's area. Thus, the user can browse the Web with a display of limited size.

1. A handheld communication device comprising:
 a wireless modem for receiving data; 
 a display that has a substantially small size suitable for in the handheld communication device; 
 a data processing system connected to the modem and to the display for processing the received data and for rendering an image corresponding to the data received; 
 a touch screen for enabling a user to interact with the device; 
 
       wherein:
 the system is operative to enable the user to select through a touch location on the touch screen a portion of the image, when displayed at a first scale, for rendering the selected portion on the display at a second scale larger than the first scale thereby facilitating a selection of a feature; and 
 the selected portion when rendered at the first second scale is a zoomed-in version of part of the image at the first scale substantially centered around the touch screen location. 
 
     
     
       2. The device of  claim 1 , wherein a position of the touch location is arbitrary with respect to the touch screen. 
     
     
       3. The device of  claim 1 , comprising a browser. 
     
     
       4. The device of  claim 1 , having wireless Internet access. 
     
     
       5. The device of  claim 1 , wherein the data comprises streaming video. 
     
     
       6. Software for being installed on a A handheld communication device, comprising a non-transitory computer readable medium embodying software, the device comprising:
 a wireless modem for receiving data; 
 a display that has a substantially small size suitable for in the handheld communication device; 
 a data processing system connected to the input and to the display for processing the received data and for rendering an image corresponding to the data received; 
 a touch screen for enabling a user to interact with the device; 
 
       wherein:
 the software is operative to enable the user to select through a touch location on the touch screen a portion of the image, when displayed at a first scale, for rendering the selected portion on the display at a second scale larger than the “first scale;” and, thereby facilitating a selection of a feature, 
 the selected portion when rendered at the first second scale is a zoomed-in version of part of the image at the first scale substantially centered around the touch screen location. 
 
     
     
       7. The handheld communication device as claimed in claim 1, wherein the data processing system is further operative to cause a window containing the selected portion displayed at the second scale to scroll across the image such that successive new selected portions of the image are displayed at the second scale.