Apple Notebook Wide Touchpads Confirmed
Macsimumnews is reporting that the patent office today unveiled Apple’s wide touchpad license, originally granted August of 2004. I am not going to go into full details as they are not clear, but I suggest visiting their site and reading the full article (it’s long and a little redundant). What I can summarize and surmise for you is that the wide touchpads will be ‘smart’. What does this mean? Well, the pads are located at the point of palm resting. The pads will be able to determine – here’s the smart part – when the user is actually inputting a function on the touchpad versus just resting their hands or palms. It is unclear, but this will be a computed effort based on keyboard use, and perhaps an IR sensor to determine hand placement. Again the patent description is long and a bit confusing, but still reaffirms Apple’s plans to release a touchpad for their line of notebooks.
Christen Costa
