hehe...
okay... I just wrote the order of releases and attempted to understand what your point was. Who said you suggested someone stole?
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Advanced Multitouch Gesturing Patents
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okay... I just wrote the order of releases and attempted to understand what your point was. Who said you suggested someone stole?
I _think_ you'll find that in order for the OS to understand gesture and movements, to understand pinches (for zoom out) etc, you can't treat them as 2 separate events, you have to consider it as ONE gesture. (This is my guess, anyway)
Of course if a program expects a mouse position, sending 2 positions simultaneously won't help... the OS would need to provide single touch signals to programs that don't support multi touch. (even if they sent 2 simultaneous pointer positions, every developer would have to then interpret both and create their own gesture understandings)
I'm sure that whatever routines are used on the iPhone would be a closer match, do they solve the issue you describe?
ps. I think if Apple makes a tablet they'll have to break compatibility with all applications in order to force a different interface paradigm (in contrast to running regular OSX apps but without keyboard or multitouch)
pps. MS Surface does allow 2 independent people to work simultaneously on the table.
people need to remember MS and Apple have to completely different markets. Apple main target is home users which means things can be demo and announcement short term because the public has very short term memory. Now MS target market is large companies. This means slower movement and they think more long term than the general public so a product announcement needs to come much father in advance so they have time to think about it and what they want.
This is a huge reason why there is such a large difference between the two. They are targeting completely different people. Apple would never make a product like surface except for home users which means a much shorter time span between announcement and release.
This is a huge reason why there is such a large difference between the two. They are targeting completely different people. Apple would never make a product like surface except for home users which means a much shorter time span between announcement and release.
Short memory and not remember Y'z Dock or Winspose? In fact I was either reading this forum or Spymac, back in the day, when I heard about Winspose. The thread was basically "check this out, expose for windows", "wonder how long before Apple's lawyers find out", "they did, download isn't available anymore." Same thing happened to Y'z Dock.
The gesture of moving backwards to erase something has been around since the pencil with an eraser. It should be public domain by now. Oh wait, we're doing it on a touchscreen, how completely different.
PCJoint.com points to ongoing research by Apple into multi-touch technologies. The most recent patent applications reveal techniques to recognize both palm and finger contacts in order to react appropriately.
PCJoint summarizes the possibilities:
This should come as no surprise to those who have been following Apple's patent applications as well as their previous acquisition of Fingerworks. Previous patent applications have also suggested the possibility of one surface acting for many different functions (such as typing and gestures).
Article Link
This is pretty awesome, what I'd really like to see myself though is the ability for consumers to have access to this technology: http://www.livescience.com/health/050317_brain_interface.html
chance are I see this paten failing under the common sense rule. If some one can prove that it is just a very common sense thing for the next step of something that is open to everyone the paten gets thrown out.
Vontage won its law suit with Verizon that way. So the moving backwards to delete if apple tried to sue under that they have a good chance of losing because it is common sense because it already used on other forms of touch screen so it just common sense it will be used on a touch screen.
Vontage won its law suit with Verizon that way. So the moving backwards to delete if apple tried to sue under that they have a good chance of losing because it is common sense because it already used on other forms of touch screen so it just common sense it will be used on a touch screen.
Apple paid Xerox. How do you equate that to stealing???
Fortunately Apple have Steve Jobs and he's on a roll ;
1: The only founder and pioneer of personal computing technology still in the game - the wealth of innate understanding this gives Apple is almost immeasurable.
2: Apple are 'off the blocks' with touch devices that are both a) shipping!, b) already incredible and c) running on the GUI Unix we call OSX - Everyone else is already in catchup mode and they are going to be struggling just to match an R1.0 OSX touch interface never mind what's coming in '08.
3: Apple have patented some pretty basic functionality and the success of the touch OS already suggests they got the basic 'interface paradigm' spot on and patented core functionality. Everyone else is going to struggle to 'reprogram' users into a different way of interacting on a touch devices. Let's remember nobody ever picked up a manual to use Apple's touch devices - it's that good!
4: MS are like a headless chicken running in all directions trying to capture all markets. They have zero focus and bloat is endemic.
Worse still MS are STILLprofitable solely because of technologies ( office/Windows) directly born from the original age of macintosh in 1984 - once again you can thank Steve Jobs for ALL of it!.
If MS loses Office they are finished - simple as that - nothing will hold up that monster - they are nothing without MS Office.
There's no denying Apple got lucky with the Ipod but it's fully empowered Steve Jobs' Apple renaissance.
So back to the original point - Zerox - to quote Steeley Dan ' you wouldn't know a diamond if you held it in your hand the things you think are precious I can't understand'
Steve Jobs mines diamonds and polishes them and ships millions of them!.
Balmer polishes turds and forces them onto the market with the money he makes from Office and Windows ( both stolen property).
Apple paid Xerox. How do you equate that to stealing???
You're right - lazy shorthand on my part. I was using 'steal' in the technically incorrect way to mean 'impressed and influenced by'. Money changed hands - or at least Apple shares did - and 1,000,000 Apple shares (or however many it was) must be worth quite a lot by now.
No, the REAL trick is to know WHAT technology to "steal, borrow, or buy" and to make something out of it the public will want to consume. Apple didn't "invent" the mp3 digital music player but they did create the trifecta of mp3 player, iTunes software and the music store for a perfect combination of browsing, buying, storing and playing on your mobile player music and other downloads. I was so mad at Apple when the iPod first came out because I thought it was a waste of time since it was not a desktop/laptop computer from Apple. Good thing I'm not in charge because I didn't have the foresight to see the possibilities, however, as a stockholder, I am pleasantly pleased with the actions Apple has taken (so far). And that goes back to my original comment that the real trick is to know what to do with the "stolen, borrowed or bought" technology with regards to developing a product and marketing to the consumer a successful finished product.
My biggest gripe with regards to companies copying from Apple is the fact that they have to make their products so similar to form factor of Apples successes. Heck Chevrolet and Ford have their muscle cars, but the similarity ends with the word "muscle car". They are engineered and crafted with totally different body styles and other distinguishing features. However, from the iMac,...
http://www.macobserver.com/article/2001/06/06.12.shtml
to the iPod,...
http://us.lge.com/products/category/image/CHOCOLATE_A.jhtml
to the iPhone,...
http://us.lge.com/products/category/image/VOYAGER_A.jhtml
competitors come out with products that mimic Apple's - be "design" creative at least.
Heck, Steve Jobs even admitted during a keynote on an updated OS X release that Apple had "borrowed" a good idea from Microsoft, regarding the ability to switch to a different user account on the same computer, but that Apple had added Apple's flare for the extravagant and eye candy with regards to their version calling it fast user switching. That's all I'm saying, take the technology and make your own style and flare. Don't use a "round" nav wheel like LG's Chocolate or phone icons that copy Apples ie LG's Voyager phone's calendar icon, the "flower" in their MyPicures icon, using a "compass" in the VZ Navigator icon... come on...
I hear so many people repeat this about multi-touch on these boards and I just have to say that I disagree. Computing is ever-evolving and it is up to companies like Apple to figure out which way it might go. Anyway, I don't really want to say it but you have to think out of the box. Apple knows that computing is moving off of the desktop (palmtop, wallfront, car..somethin'...etc?). You seem to get it more then others but sheesh it seems like a lot of people limit their thoughts concerning multi-touch.
This only further stimulates my dreams for a revived MessagePad. Could we call it the 2200 perhaps??
just give me my MacBookPro powerhouse ultracompact laptop with crazy touch doodads and I'll be content. I'm starting to foam at the mouth.
I'm quite interested behind the logic behind 'Pretend to hold a pen or stylus in your hand and write something' with this multi-touch.
What do they mean? As in, just hold your hand in the shape of a way you'd hold a pen, and the screen will pick it up from your hand/palm shape? That surely is way too imprecise for writing? Anybody whos tried drawing on the iPhone/Touch knows what it feels like.
But what about actually holding a stylus or pen? Anybody who knows anything about multi-touch knows it is a capacitance surface. Which means it detects the electric signals in your fingers to rely on input, which makes it much more smoother than a pressure based system. Nintendo DS and PDAs are all pressure based, which allows them to use styluses, but also means when you use your finger, you have to press just that bit harder, and not this 'glide your fingers' beauty from multi-touch. Could they possibly make a battery operated stylus?
But we all know what Steve Jobs thinks of styluses. 'ew'
If Apple finds a good way around this then bravo, because it is genuinely a concern. Both technologies are great, and multi-touch is simply an amazing technology. But its still in its infancy, and it still has niggling problems. Like this.
Rant over
Otherwise this sounds really cool, albiet what we've heard for months.
What I was imagining was perhaps take your three fingers you would normally use to hold a pen or pencil. Now take then and just squish them together so that essentially you have your index and middle finger next to each other with your thumb in the center (not in between the two fingers but resting in the center of the two fingers). So what happens is if you look at that you see you sort of make a little point between the center of all three digits.
What I could see happening with this is if that becomes a gesture in that the software detects that thats what is on the screen and triangulates the center based on pressure points. That center would become essentially the tip of our imaginary stylus and thats where you would have your ink and what not appear on screen.
I dunno, that came to mind last night and i was playing around with it by just taking that "gesture" and dragging it all over the surface of my laptop (seeing as I don't have an iPhone or iPod Touch) and it seemed like if they could get the triangulation right, it could work.
before iphone, and before 'surface', there was the nyu FTIR project:
http://cs.nyu.edu/~jhan/ftirtouch/
which was then spun off into perceptive pixel.
here is a demo jeff gave in feb of 2006: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=PLhMVNdplJc
http://cs.nyu.edu/~jhan/ftirtouch/
which was then spun off into perceptive pixel.
here is a demo jeff gave in feb of 2006: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=PLhMVNdplJc
I've got a Fingerworks Multitouch full keyboard right here with me. It's really great and I'm glad Apple is taking the technology further. I can type on it but the error correction ability isn't quite up to my poor typing. The iPhone seems to have solved this though. The two halves are angled so it works great ergonomically.
The big problem I have with it is that since upgrading to a new aluminum imac and Leopard, it's stopped working.
Grrrr.
I hope they come out with a product soon. It's a fantastic technology. I miss it.
The big problem I have with it is that since upgrading to a new aluminum imac and Leopard, it's stopped working.
Grrrr.
I hope they come out with a product soon. It's a fantastic technology. I miss it.
The mouse and keyboard will be around for general / business use for a long time, at least until brain reading comes along, and probably after that. (Voice input is also no good... disturbs everyone nearby.)
I'm on a touchscreen laptop right now. They've been around for many years. Why don't you have one? Because it's not that useful outside of a few situations.
As someone else has already mentioned, why raise my arm to the screen, and why try to touch-type on a hard flat surface? Mouse and keyboard = much easier / faster, and you don't cover up what you're working on (a major touchscreen con).
On the other hand, my daughter used a touch screen exclusively to surf the web from age one to three. Now even she uses a mouse.