Fingerworks

I did a recent comment on Mac2‘ regarding computer mice.
I never liked them. I mean…they are ok to play quake but other then that I’ve always found them a bit…over-used, I guess.

A few years back I came in touch with an igesture pad, and the point and click world made sense for a wile. Imagine a track-pad on steroids. Imagine clicking with both fingers to get a right-click. Imagine pinning your thumb, dragging an icon with index and middle finger and that would be a “move” imagine just the index and middle finger dragging an icon and that would be a “copy”, imagine clicking on a icon with all 4 fingers (no thumb) and releasing them all at the same time to send the item to the trash. The chords were vast and there was a learning mode so you could make up your own.

Fingerworks closed up a long time ago. I never heard from them again. bankruptcy, fleeing CEO’s…I don’t know. I was sad because a) they made great devices that suited me (and not the other way around and b) once again I failed to spot a dead horse. A project I liked was really not meant for the mass market. my bad. again. I had my hopes up for this one.

I uttered a “liar liar pants on fire” wile watching the last apple keynote as Steve Jobs demonstrated the “pinch” gesture on the iphone and sold it as “never seen before” or something in that fashion. fingerworks were doing that 10 years ago. not on a screen, granted. but the concept was there.

The other day, by complete accident on flikr I had a little “comment-chat” stravaganza with another user, he apparently had a Touchstream keyboard (fingerworks’ flagship product) and informed me that it was Apple who ended up buying Fingerworks.

I’m slightly excited about the rumors that the next macbooks will have features like the pinch. People are talking about a touch screen but I’d rather have the igestures built into a slightly bigger track pad. Sure touch screens are fun, but between igesture or and etch-a-sketch in a real world scennario…
For my needs gimme the igesture any day of the week.

So I discovered the unofficial figerworks forum and in the buy/sell area there was a link to an auction on ebay. I was amazed, repulsed and startled all at the same time. See for yourself:

How is this guy going to explain this expense to his wife?

…just wondering.