Patents by Inventor Catherine N. Boulanger

Catherine N. Boulanger has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Publication number: 20140139421
    Abstract: This document describes techniques and apparatuses concerning e-book-reading devices having integral variable-input manual selectors through which selection to control an electronic book is enabled. One example of this control includes navigating pages of an electronic book through flipping pages. Control of this page flipping can be made through a single implement of the variable-input manual selector, such as to slow, speed up, stop, or reverse the page flipping.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 21, 2012
    Publication date: May 22, 2014
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Catherine N. Boulanger, John G.A. Weiss, Steven Nabil Bathiche, Paul Henry Dietz
  • Publication number: 20140143705
    Abstract: This document describes techniques and apparatuses enabling bookmarking for electronic books. The techniques and apparatuses enable a user of an electronic book to bookmark pages of the electronic book and navigate based on these bookmarks as well as bookmarks made by other users.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 21, 2012
    Publication date: May 22, 2014
    Applicant: MICROSOFT CORPORATION
    Inventors: Catherine N. Boulanger, John G.A. Weiss, Steven Nabil Bathiche, Paul Henry Dietz
  • Publication number: 20140143706
    Abstract: This document describes techniques and apparatuses enabling electronic book navigation. These techniques and apparatuses enable a user to navigate through an electronic book by flipping through pages of the electronic book. The speed of this flip can be based on a force or bend applied to a manual selector of a computing device on which the electronic book is displayed. The flip may also be affected by an affinity for a page of the electronic book, such by pausing at a page previously bookmarked by the user or often viewed by previous readers of the electronic book. This document also describes e-book-reading devices having integral variable-input manual selectors through which selection to flip through pages of an electronic book is enabled.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 21, 2012
    Publication date: May 22, 2014
    Applicant: MICROSOFT CORPORATION
    Inventors: Catherine N. Boulanger, John G. A. Weiss, Steven Nabil Bathiche, Paul Henry Dietz
  • Publication number: 20140132595
    Abstract: A display that renders realistic objects allows a designer to redesign a living space in real time based on an existing layout. A computer system renders simulated objects on the display such that the simulated objects appear to the viewer to be in substantially the same place as actual objects in the scene. The displayed simulated objects can be spatially manipulated on the display through various user gestures. A designer can visually simulate a redesign of the space in many ways, for example, by adding selected objects, or by removing or rearranging existing objects, or by changing properties of those objects. Such objects also can be associated with shopping resources to enable related goods and services to be purchased, or other commercial transactions to be engaged in.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 14, 2012
    Publication date: May 15, 2014
    Applicant: MICROSOFT CORPORATION
    Inventors: Catherine N. Boulanger, Matheen Siddiqui, Vivek Pradeep, Paul Dietz, Steven Bathiche
  • Publication number: 20140098085
    Abstract: This document describes techniques and apparatuses for implementing a transparent display device. A transparent display device includes a transparent or translucent screen to render images on the screen, and to render virtual objects that appear to be in a three-dimensional (3D) space behind the screen. The transparent display device also includes a hand tracker to sense movement of a user's hands to interact with one or more of the virtual objects, and to generate 3D-input based on the movement. The transparent or translucent screen enables the user to see the user's hands behind the screen as the user's hands interact with the one or more virtual objects. The transparent display device is controlled to modify the rendering of the images on the screen or the virtual objects behind the screen based on the 3D-input.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 9, 2012
    Publication date: April 10, 2014
    Applicant: MICROSOFT CORPORATION
    Inventors: Jinha Lee, Catherine N. Boulanger, Steven Nabil Bathiche
  • Publication number: 20140063198
    Abstract: This document describes various apparatuses and techniques for changing perspectives of a microscopic-image device based on a viewer's perspective. Various embodiments of these techniques sense a change to a viewer's perspective based on the viewer's head position and control a microscopic-image device effective to display images of an object based on the change to the viewer's perspective.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 30, 2012
    Publication date: March 6, 2014
    Applicant: MICROSOFT CORPORATION
    Inventors: Catherine N. Boulanger, Paul Henry Dietz, Steven Nabil Bathiche
  • Publication number: 20130335387
    Abstract: This document describes techniques and apparatuses for implementing an object-detecting backlight unit for a display device. An object-detecting backlight unit includes two or more light sources configured to provide light to a display to form an image, and a light sensor configured to receive reflected light when an object is near the display and determine that the reflected light originated from a region of the display. The reflected light is caused by light from the image reflecting off of the object back towards the display. The backlight unit is configured to detect a position of the object based on the region of the display from which the reflected light originated.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 15, 2012
    Publication date: December 19, 2013
    Applicant: MICROSOFT CORPORATION
    Inventors: Neil Emerton, Timothy Andrew Large, Catherine N. Boulanger
  • Publication number: 20130328761
    Abstract: Photosensor array gesture detection techniques are described. In one or more embodiments, a computing device includes an array of photosensors. The photosensor array can be configured in various ways to measure changes in the amount of light that occur based upon a user's hand position above the photosensor array. In at least some embodiments, capacitance associated with the photosensors is charged and data regarding discharge rates for the sensors is collected that is indicative of the amount of incident light. Sequential changes in the amount of light that is measured across the array of photosensors can be used to determine positioning and/or movement of the user's hand in three dimensions (e.g., track position/motion in three-dimensional (3D) space relative to the computing device.) Accordingly, various gestures can be defined in terms of input obtained via the photosensor array and recognized to trigger corresponding operations by the computing device.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 12, 2012
    Publication date: December 12, 2013
    Applicant: MICROSOFT CORPORATION
    Inventors: Catherine N. Boulanger, Paul Henry Dietz, Steven Nabil Bathiche
  • Publication number: 20130300668
    Abstract: Grip-based device adaptations are described in which a touch-aware skin of a device is employed to adapt device behavior in various ways. The touch-aware skin may include a plurality of sensors from which a device may obtain input and decode the input to determine grip characteristics indicative of a user's grip. On-screen keyboards and other input elements may then be configured and located in a user interface according to a determined grip. In at least some embodiments, a gesture defined to facilitate selective launch of on-screen input element may be recognized and used in conjunction with grip characteristics to launch the on-screen input element in dependence upon grip. Additionally, touch and gesture recognition parameters may be adjusted according to a determined grip to reduce misrecognition.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 20, 2013
    Publication date: November 14, 2013
    Inventors: Anatoly Churikov, Catherine N. Boulanger, Hrvoje Benko, Luis E. Cabrera-Cordon, Paul Henry Dietz, Steven Nabil Bathiche, Kenneth P. Hinckley