Piles + Touch Screen interface patent =

[vniow]

I found this on digg so it may not work after a bit but it sure as hell was interesting, even if for a concept.

In 2003, MR reported on a rumoured (suprise) feature of Panther called "Piles". (demo) It never came into any publicly released version of any of their operating system but many saw it as an interesting concept.

Earlier this year and through the year before that, Apple files for a number of touch screen interface patents, the result remains known only to Apple of this day. There was a rather facinating demo of the features it could potentially have.

Today I saw a link which les to another kind of touch interface that used the Piles concept patented by Apple some years ago. Its single point only unlike the later Apple patent but seems to be easily adaptable to multi touch. Its demoed on a Tablet PC but the concept is platform independent.

http://honeybrown.ca/Pubs/BumpTop.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0ODskdEPnQ

 

[medea]

I was thinking the same thing when I saw that video. I wonder what sort of relationship there is between apple and bump-top.

I don't have much interest in pen based interfaces though.


On a side note though there are definitely quicktime files in that demo!

 

[thedude110]

I've never seen anything like this before and think it's ridiculously cool.

Seems to make the OS experience both more authentic and more instinctual.

Maybe I should add a tablet Mac to the drooling thread ...