Filed under: Apple Corporate
Apple patent for notebook with widescreen touchpad
Another Apple patent filing came to light
yestersday--this one for a widescreen touchpad for a notebook computer. The patent was filed back on August 25, 2004,
but revealed by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office today. If you want to wade through the dense legalese, head over
to Macsimum News, which has published excerpts from
the patent filing. In a nutshell, the patent app concerns a wide touchpad that appears to stretch across the width of a
notebook computer and may have multiple touch-sensitive regions. However, it isn't clear from the document exactly what
Apple has in mind for this touchpad.The bulk of the text describes various methods for distinguishing a deliberate motion on the touchpad from a nondeliberate one--like resting your palms on the touchpad. One of the methods described involves an "imaging sensor" that happens to be in about the same place as the iSight on a MacBook Pro. The screenshot to the right is the illustration that accompanies that description, with labels added. Here's what the patent application has to say about this:
"Imaging sensor 545 detects an area of base assembly 520 that includes keyboard 222 and touchpad 524. When activated, imaging sensor 545 may detect a particular hand location and establish accept/reject criteria as described above . . . In an alternative embodiment, imaging sensor 545 may also provide video-conferencing functionality when not operating as an imaging sensor."
By the way, if you'd like some background on patent filings and a roundup of other Apple patent applications, catch the February 25 episode of The Mac Observer's Weekly Roundup podcast. Here's a link to the show notes, where you can get an mp3 of that episode.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
djones said 8:51AM on 3-03-2006
That oddly reminds me of the virtual laser keyboards that got press a couple years ago. I mean if it's "sensing" the area of the keyboard, maybe they're trying to eliminate weight, power usage, and the mechanical aspect of having a real keyboard.
http://www.mavromatic.com/archives/000178
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Blue Balloon said 9:44AM on 3-03-2006
i find these is full of bull. I am tired of patent thing that I may know that wouldn't come true.
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chungkaishek said 9:46AM on 3-03-2006
I like it. it might be used as a tactile way of pushing files around the desktop. A Powerbook's touch pads can detect two fingers, and it looks like this thing could detect two hands performing different actions.
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Mike said 11:13AM on 3-03-2006
#3 sounds like Minority Report pushing applications and documents with ease like that.
I like the idea of a touch sensitive lcd integrated into the palm area eliminating the need for a dock. Minimize windows to the palm rest & when you need them, flick the window back onto the main display with your fingers. Kind of like a little pond with apps floating around in it. Or maybe even put widgets down there.
Sounds like a big waste of money right now but in the future when this kind of thing is more cost-effective w/ mass-produced OLED's, it could sell notebooks. It'd definitely be a feature I'd be interested in.
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K said 2:58PM on 3-03-2006
It's clear this is the new MacTouchBook...
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