Apple, multi-touch and text input

Last week, Gizmodo published this great write-up on the touch technology expected with the Apple tablet speculated to be launching later this month.

I'm pretty stoked about the idea of an Apple tablet- having postponed my plans for a new laptop/netbook on several occasions last year. Text input will be a deciding factor and the article covers pretty much everything about what to expect.

I am, somehow, still betting that Apple may integrate a touch surface on the back of the device in addition to a touch screen- where gestures and tactile operations on the device’s case will result in actions on the screen. I found this paper about a technology which these researchers call LucidTouch that precisely describes how a device such as this might function:

In this paper, we present LucidTouch, a mobile device that addresses this limitation by allowing the user to control the application by touching the back of the device. The key to making this usable is what we call pseudo-transparency: by overlaying an image of the user's hands onto the screen, we create the illusion of the mobile device itself being semi-transparent. This pseudo-transparency allows users to accurately acquire targets while not occluding the screen with their fingers and hand. Lucid Touch also supports multi-touch input, allowing users to operate the device simultaneously with all 10 fingers. We present initial study results that indicate that many users found touching on the back to be preferable to touching on the front, due to reduced occlusion, higher precision, and the ability to make multi-finger input.

Here’s a video of a prototype of the device:

I’m not sure who owns the patents for this technology, but Microsoft(!) & Mitsubishi published most of this research. With that said, I still believe Apple may have some version of this in the works- very similar to their new multi-touch MagicMouse from Oct ‘09.

Update: Pretty much inline with what was speculated for the iphone 4G just 4 days ago! I still think Apple may introduce the concept with their tablet.