I wonder how did Microsoft decide on the date to announce their secret, 5 years in the making, Milan TableTop PC?
After all, last Wednesday (May 30), was just like any other day. So why then?
Wasn’t it because a very interesting Microsoft patent, called “Function-oriented user interface” was about to become public the very next day?
The application was published on May 31st and is covering a lot of touch user interface things shown in the Microsoft TableTop PC presentation.
Patent describes a different way to design the user interface, where user selections are presented on what the users want to do, rather then what tool they want to use. Different functions can be dragged on elements (data objects) or these elements can be dragged onto functions to initiate various activities.
This approach, described in the patent application makes the whole interaction with a PC significantly more intuitive.
As an illustrative examples Microsoft describes a number of possible interactions like:
- writing, grabbing the note and dragging it to address icon to send it to a friend
- pressing calendar icon, map icon, yellow pages icon and using the resulting applications to buy a tickets and plan a trip to a sports game
- scheduling recording of TV program by dragging TV listing of it onto a calendar
- answering calls, recording and sending voice messages through touch/drag and drop interactions
- managing photographs by dragging them around and putting them on different icons
- resizing the pictures with two fingers
- and quite a few other functions
The most interesting thing about this patent application is that even though Microsoft mentions that the actions can be performed with mouse and cursor, almost all of the illustrations given there (and there are more then 40 of them) rely on the touchscreen interface.
The patent application was filed on November 30 and does not reference any other related patent applications. But the size and scope of it indicates that this research should be a part of major effort within Microsoft.
My guess is that “Function-oriented user interface” is one of the first patents related to the new Microsoft TableTop PC touch computing paradigm. And much more of them should become public in a few months.
Source: Patent aplication