Apple presented us with the new Touch Bar as a revolutionary technology, and as one of its many "innovative ideas" in the new MacBook Pro.
Truth; Through Twitter, @bjorndori shared one exciting article by Microsoft Applied Sciences Group:
"What idea might interest the Microsoft Applied Science Team for a decade?" Adaptive hardware: input devices that can change visually, even potentially, based on the context.
1999: The concept is born. A keyboard could display the active action keys and hide the irrelevant keys for a specific application, in the operation and status of the application. ”
The article reports the evolution of the concept from the idea that existed in his book Steven Bathiche in 1999 in a series of prototypes, one of which (from 2009) was "a large, touch strip across the top of the screen with key prompts."
https://twitter.com/bjorndori/statuses/791735652618502144
Today, of course, Bathiche appears to be actively involved in the development of Microsoft's Surface Line.
All of the above are subject to a cross-licensing patent agreement that Apple and Microsoft have signed since the 1990s. Those patents, of course, continue to produce dividends for both companies.
The above publication refers to the idea of the Touch Bar and that it existed from 1999. Of course, the Apple Touch Bar could not be the same 17 years later, as it is now possible to add new technologies.
