Former Apple engineer: FingerWorks may be a part of the tablet

The New York Times is the latest big source of tablet rumors today, and they went way back for the latest stab in the dark. All the way back to 2005, when Apple purchased a little company called FingerWorks, known for their work with gesture recognition on a multitouch interface like the Touchstream keyboard above. The Gray Lady says they spoke with "former Apple engineers" who have worked on the tablet itself, and those guys claim that it makes use of gesture recognition to operate: "for example, three fingers down and rotate could mean 'open an application.'" Another former employee told them that Apple's been putting together a multitouch version of iWork for years, and that the tablet is actually a full-featured Mac, not just an e-reader or larger iPod touch.

Of course, we don't know how long ago these Apple engineers worked for the company -- given that the App Store has vastly changed things over there in just the last year and a half, the tablet itself could have changed its focus in that same period of time. At this point, given all of the things you can do with a multitouch screen, finger gestures are probably the least impressive. But then again, Apple's been obsessed with multitouch for a while, so it's not a stretch to think they might be included some of this FingerWorks technology in a larger multitouch screen. Wait and see, wait and see.

Update: MacRumors now notes that some content on FingerWorks' website has been pulled despite being online since Apple made the purchase in 2005. Very interesting.

[via MacRumors]
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