Apple Next-gen Multi-touch Input Surface

Apple’s on the forefront of things again – or so it seems, with their latest patent filing touching on a next-generation multi-touch ‘surface’ that brings together various activities such as typing, pointing, scrolling and handwriting capability in a single, ergonomic design that hopes to usher the death of typical input devices we take for granted these days – including the keyboard, mouse and drawing tablet. The surface will comprise of an electronic system that potentially “provide images of flesh proximity to an array of sensors with such resolution that a variety of hand configurations can be distinguished”. This enables the device to know just which hand parts are touching the surface, while different hand configurations yield different output. I’m rather skeptical though, as the older generation might find it a tad hard to learn a whole new bunch of gestures all over again.