Apple has this week won a new patent from the USPTO, titled Detecting and interpreting real-world and security gestures on touch and hover sensitive devices. The concept expands on the multi-touch gestures possible with capacitive touchscreens. By using proximity sensor panels, Apple notes, it should be possible to detect gestures outside the short hovering range capacitive touch sensors can register.
The benefit of hover gestures would be more complex commands, since users wouldn't be limited to 2D space. People could make "OK" gestures, the patent remarks, or even "hitchhiker directional gestures." More mundane commands might include a "grasp everything" motion, or making an X to delete something. For security purposes a custom gesture might be used to unlock software.
The patent was originally submitted in June 2007, and is credited to Wayne Carl Westerman and Myra Mary Haggerty. Its age, roughly coinciding with the launch of the original iPhone, may suggest that Apple has largely abandoned the concept. It could prove useful for Macs however, as gesture commands in Mac OS X have so far only been implemented through trackpads.
The patent was originally submitted in June 2007, and is credited to Wayne Carl Westerman and Myra Mary Haggerty. Its age, roughly coinciding with the launch of the original iPhone, may suggest that Apple has largely abandoned the concept. It could prove useful for Macs however, as gesture commands in Mac OS X have so far only been implemented through trackpads.
Read more: http://www.macnn.com/articles/11/01/27/tech.might.combine.touch.proximity.sensors/#ixzz1CFZ2igxe
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