Apple has introduced the new Touch Bar as revolutionary technology, and as one of her many "innovative ideas" in the new MacBook Pro.
Truth; Via Twitter, The user @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 mentions the evolution of the concept from the idea in Steven Bathiche's book in 1999 to a series of prototypes, one of which (2009) was “a large, touch bar at the top of the screen with keypad indications . ”
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 is subject to a patent cross-licensing agreement that Apple and Microsoft have signed since the 1990s. Those patents, of course, continue to pay dividends for the two 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.
