“Several Apple employees have collectively filed a patent request for a wide touchpad on a noteboook computer, where the palm rest areas of the portable would formed a said touchpad,” Prince McLean reports for AppleInsider. “In the filing made on August 25, 2004 and published by the United States Patent and Trademark Office on Thursday, Apple employees describe several examples of a ‘wide touchpad and keyboard’ that would allow a user to interact with the display screen and enter data.”
“One description says the wide touchpad may be a cursor control device having the capabilities of conventional computer mouse, such as the ability to point, drag, tap, and double tap objects on a graphical user interface, as well as more general purposes such as scrolling, panning, zooming, and rotating images on display screen,” McLean reports. “The patent filing — which is credited to several known Apple employees such as Bas Ording and Bartley Andre — goes on to list dozens of possible behaviors for a wide touchpad, including a device that would support ‘multiple or two-handed input.'”
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