Google News, Inside.

New Googly Patents

Posted at 2:52am EST on 06/23/2009

Google was just granted a new patent that will give them rights to a navigation system that doesn’t require any pointing device.

Here is what the patent actually says.

A system and method for navigating within a graphical user interface without using a pointing device is described. A set of one or more keyboard shortcuts is defined, including at least one key. Each keyboard shortcut specifies an action effecting a graphical user interface, which is executed upon input of each key in the keyboard shortcut and at least one key corresponding to a semantically-meaningful hyperlink within Web content. The graphical user interface is navigated. The Web content is provided on a view within the graphical user interface and a graphical pointer indicating a location within the view is included. At least one key input by a user is intercepted and the intercepted key to one such keyboard shortcut is mapped. The action specified by the keyboard shortcut is executed and the view within the Web content is updated relative to the graphical pointer.

Wow. That sounds really awesome. Does anyone else feel like this is a bit like future-ish technology like Minority Report? The same technology used in Minority Report is already be used in applications today.

Here’s a short video of what the technology could look like that Google is developing.

Date patent was filed: June 27, 2003 (nearly 6 years ago)

The technology to actually navigate without a pointing device has been around for at least a year now. Google registering this patent 6 years ago, back in 2003, proves that Google is a very innovative company and far ahead of the curve — probably more of the “trend setter” rather than following in any capacity.

Congrats to Google for being awarded this patent, I’m sure we will see it showing up in new products as the years progress.