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Companies Poised for a Thumb War

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Daniel Roth from Wired Magazine published an  interesting  article  about a battle that’s brewing over gestures. The stakes are high as touch computing moves into the mainstream, with as many as 30% of mobile phones expected to have the feature by 2013.

Flicking, pinching and swiping are all gestures that the likes of Apple, Nokia, HP and other companies mention in their patent applications. Each of these companies want to mark their territories and influence the future of touch, but the best solution for consumers would be a standardized set of gestures.

The article quotes Apple COO Tim Cook’s displeasure with Palm’s Pre:

“We will not stand for having our IP ripped off, and we’ll use whatever weapons we have at our disposal. I don’t know that I can be clearer than that.”

How useful would touch computing be if you couldn’t gesture naturally because of licensing restrictions?

via Wired

1 Comment

1 Comment

  1. Ben

    03/24/2009 at 5:20 pm

    How useful would touch computing be if you couldn’t gesture naturally because of licensing restrictions?

    In a word: stupid.

    While they’re at it, they should patent the fact that pressing the A key makes an A, and pushing the mouse forward makes the cursor go up.

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