Abstract: A touch-sensitive display surface having touch-capacitive and vibration sensors. This surface allows the user to rest their fingers on the keys of an onscreen keyboard and type as they would on a regular keyboard. As the user places their fingers on the touch screen, the system relocates the onscreen keyboard to the location where the fingers are resting. The touch sensors report the signal strength level of each key touched to a processor, but no keystroke is issued by the processor until a corresponding “tap” (i.e., vibration) is detected. When a tap is detected, the processor references the status of the touch capacitance sensors before, during, and/or immediately after the moment in time the tap occurred. The size, position, and orientation of the onscreen keyboard keys are dynamically set as determined by the user initiating a home-row definition event by resting their fingers momentarily on a virtual home-row.

Abstract: Systems and methods that allow the user to rest their fingers on a touch-sensitive surface and make selections on that surface with a pressing action. Touch capacitance sensors that typically provide X and Y location data associated with a user's touch are also used to discern finger pressure in the Z direction. This allows the user to make an actuation on the touch screen by simply pressing harder at a location where they may already be resting their finger(s).

Abstract: An intelligent touch-sensitive surface that is easy to clean, that self-monitors when it has become contaminated, and can discern when it has been cleaned. The surface incorporates a plurality of sensors that detect events that contribute to contamination and/or cleaning, including, but not limited to, detecting users' touches, movement of the surface, when liquid is present on the surface, when there has been a change of users, time passage since the last cleaning, and how well the surface was wiped. The surface then reports its cleaning status to software residing on a host computer, which in turn can transfer the information to a host server. In this way, the cleaning status of each surface can be monitored remotely and/or logged.