Advanced Multitouch Gesturing Control Panel in Mac OS X

Quincy Pince-Nez
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February 18, 2008
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Macrumors found a recent MacOSX gesturing control panel patent from an Apple employee (formerly of Fingerworks).  As they say, this is pretty likely to show up in upcoming builds of OSX and new hardware like the MacBook Pros that should be announced by the end of the month.

Interestingly...

They also claim to be able to distinguish between various combinations of fingers, including adjacent and non-adjacent finger presses. In particular, they point out that the pinky finger when applied sideways to the trackpad (as in the bottom of a fist) generates a unique pattern and could be used for its own customizable functionality: such as adjusting volume or putting the computer to sleep.

Putting the Mac to sleep by applying the bottom of your fist?  It is so natural!

 

Comments (4)

Moose (not verified) | February 19, 2008 - 8:35am

All very well but how do they cater for people like me that have lost a finger tip!
Looks like a splendid idea all round.

Dan Uff (not verified) | February 19, 2008 - 12:47pm

I like the idea of hand gesters but what about persons with Cerbral Palsy that (most of the time) make hand gesters to make the new Apples do all of the cool stuff.

 

Dan

Anonymous Coward (not verified) | February 19, 2008 - 4:39pm

that is like asking what they are going to do about making ipods for deaf people. I dont think that apples first concern when developing new technology was people with cerbral palsy and people who have lost a tip of a finger.Image CAPTCHA

Anonymous Coward (not verified) | February 28, 2008 - 12:57am

Looks very nice, but I don't see how this is going to help parapalegics?!