

Bill Buxton: Multi-Touch Systems that I Have Known (1982) - johnx123-up
http://www.billbuxton.com/multitouchOverview.html

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creamyhorror
Iluminating, exhaustive article and illustrated history of multitouch. I
wonder how many of these papers, prototypes and devices the patent examiners
came across when they were deciding on the prospective multitouch patent now
owned by Apple. Money quote:

\----

 _Multi-touch technologies have a long history. To put it in perspective, my
group at the University of Toronto was working on multi-touchin 1984 (Lee,
Buxton & Smith, 1985), the same year that the first Macintosh computer was
released, and we were not the first. Furthermore, during the development of
the iPhone, Apple was very much aware of the history of multi-touch, dating at
least back to 1982, and the use of the pinch gesture, dating back to 1983.
This is clearly demonstrated by the bibliography of the PhD thesis of Wayne
Westerman, co-founder of FingerWorks, a company that Apple acquired early in
2005, and now an Apple employee

    
    
        Westerman, Wayne (1999). Hand Tracking,Finger Identification, and Chordic Manipulation on a Multi-Touch Surface. U of Delaware PhD Dissertation:  http://www.ee.udel.edu/~westerma/main.pdf
    

In making this statement about their awareness of past work, I am not
criticizing Westerman, the iPhone, or Apple. It is simply good practice and
good scholarship to know the literature and do one's homework when embarking
on a new product. What I am pointing out, however, is that "new" technologies
- like multi-touch - do not grow out of a vacuum. While marketing tends to
like the "great invention" story, real innovation rarely works that way. In
short, the evolution of multi-touch is a text-book example of what I call "the
long-nose of innovation."_

\----

Interesting examples relating to pinch-to-zoom:

[o] 1983: Video Place / Video Desk (Myron Krueger)

His use of many of the hand gestures that are now starting to emerge can be
clearly seen in the following 1988 video, including using the pinch gesture to
scale and translate objects: <http://youtube.com/watch?v=dmmxVA5xhuo>

[o] 1991: Digital Desk(Pierre Wellner, Rank Xerox EuroPARC, Cambridge)

Clearly demonstrated multi-touch concepts such as two finger scaling and
translation of graphical objects, using either a pinching gesture or a finger
from each hand, among other things.

This page makes it quite clear how improvements in this subfield of tech, like
in many other fields, are evolutionary and build upon existing ideas in the
literature. Many potential implementations have been proposed and experimented
with. What role do patents play in this picture? What is the breadth of
Apple's pinch-to-zoom patent - how far does it extend beyond smartphones? Are
any of these devices close enough to the patent to legally count as prior art?

Thanks for this great submission. Buxton has been referenced on HN a few times
before, but it's my first time reading his page.

~~~
taligent
In NONE of those cases did anybody use a pinch gesture to zoom anything.

So no. None of those legally count as prior art.

~~~
jrmg
Look in the 1998 video (<http://youtube.com/watch?v=dmmxVA5xhuo>) around 4:30.
You could perhaps argue that's 'scaling' not 'zooming', but that's a very
pedantic position, and not one I personally would entertain.

~~~
recoiledsnake
Direct link to the pinch to zoom part.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=dmmxVA5xhuo#t=267s)

So, tacking on a "BUT ON A CAPACITATIVE SCREEN" got Apple the patent?

~~~
deltaqueue
Hardly. The screen on Buxton's multi-touch tablet in '85 was capacitive!

The patent system is so broken.

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xiaoma
Slightly off-topic:

Does anybody know where the videos of Bill's excellent talk titled _What if
Leopold didn't have a piano_ can be found? I saw part of the lecture online
several years ago and it was one of the most insightful things I've seen, The
story of the sculpting instructor who did an A/B test on his students, grading
half of them entirely on the cumulative _weight_ of their assignments was
particularly eye-opening.

I've googled many times since and never found the full multi-hour video again.

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ot
Why the (1982) in the title? The original article is from 2007, and this is a
revision from 2012.

~~~
johnx123-up
For the _context_ :

    
    
      Furthermore, during the development of the iPhone, Apple was 
      very much aware of the history of multi-touch, dating at 
      least back to 1982, and the use of the pinch gesture, dating 
      back to 1983.

------
jeremyarussell
It strikes me as odd that this didn't last long on the front page or get
upvoted nearly as much as all the samsung vs apple submissions that had a
large amount of people defending apple in the comments. Yet this, this
extremely valid and informational piece gets pushed down the list like
nothing. This is why I generally don't post on these submissions anyways, it
feels like they are all one sided in defense of apple all the time, nothing
but samsung is a thief that copies apple, with no mention of what apple did to
xerox and Steve Jobs openly stating that he did indeed take their idea because
they weren't going to do anything with it.

It's a bit disheartening is all.

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Terretta
Thank goodness for companies like Apple that, when needing to rapidly
introduce new technologies for users, acquire small businesses already
invested in the space like Fingerworks for multi-touch, or Pixo for iPod's
interface.

Seems much better for us entrepreneurs than Samsung's approach. In the build
versus buy equation, I want big companies to calculate they're better off to
license or acquire.

~~~
Terretta
It's curious that Hacker News disagrees with the idea it's better for big
businesses to buy small companies than to copy them.

~~~
mcantelon
I think HN understands that the expense and time involved in having to license
every simple idea is a barrier to innovation. Licensing should be reserved for
protecting the kind of things that require substantial investment --
implementation details, for example -- rather than simple ideas.

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dj2stein9
Why isn't Bill Buxton suing Apple for a billion dollars?

~~~
ktizo
Perhaps he has class.

~~~
malandrew
True, but the schadenfreude in me secretly hopes he sues the bejeezus out of
Apple and then donates all the money to people who need to defend themselves
against Apple's patent trolling.

Apple, more than any other company, not only exhibits but flaunts the "long-
nose of innovation" in everything they say or do. They need a healthy dose of
reality.

I think the best illustrative art they could have used in the trial is to hand
everyone a rubber band and asked them to make it larger using one hand. I bet
you 99% of them would place the band between their index finger and thumb or
thumb and all four fingers. They are the two most obvious solutions for any
creature with an opposable thumb.

