27 December 2008

Weekend Reading
Nokia Patents Multi-touch Like Technology?

Although Apple is not alone in the arena of multi-touch and multi-touch technology itself is far from being an Apple invention, Apple has indeed filed a patent for future multi-touch products.

The first multi-touch like interface was introduced way back in 2006, when the NYU professor Jeff Han wowed the crowd at the March TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conference with a demo of his multitouch research.

Not to mention that Bill Gates demo'd Microsoft's top secret project, a Surface Table in early 2007, months before the iPhone release and even Apple CEO Steve Jobs reportedly used Microsoft's work with tablet PCs as the jumping-off point for iPhone development.

So, despite lots of big players in multi-touch patent game, it seems that Nokia isn't worried about infringing anyone else's technology as they are working on its own multi-touch user interface!?

Latest Nokia’s patent application with the USPTO (patent application 20080316181) reveals the user interface that is very similar to multitouch. "The touch sensitive service is capable of detecting multiple simultaneous points of touch."

Yeah I know, it sounds complicated but multiple simultaneous points of touch are nothing but the multi-touch in simple words.

The rest of the documents describe a ways on how you can perform different actions by swiping a dedicated finger in a pre-determined matter on any part of the screen.

What are your thoughts? Apple's patents are strong enough to absolutely stop others from using similar technology or maybe Nokia has found a hole!?