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Apple's 3D Desktop Patent Filing Examined
Posted by
timothy
on Fri Dec 12, 2008 12:54 PM
from the tastiest-apples-have-three-dimensions dept.
from the tastiest-apples-have-three-dimensions dept.
phantomfive writes "The patent office has released some patent filings by Apple which indicate that the company is working on a 3D desktop of some sort. They call it a multi-dimensional desktop, according to the patent filing." There's also some commentary at ZDNet; both stories link to a detailed run-down at AppleInsider.
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I love 3D (Score:4, Interesting)
Not surprising if you look at the 3D effects that Apple put into Time Machine and the document stack. I love these.
What will make this really interesting is the navigation itself: since Apple is about to get rid of all buttons on the trackpad (and mouse?), I'm wondering if they have thought of some fancy 3 or 4-finger gestures to move around in 3D. I can think of some games that could use that.
The first time I saw the idea of 3D navigation for the desktop was when Hypercard came out (was that 10, 15 years ago?). Someone came up with this concept of a house where you'd store various things. In the basement would be the backups. On the desk in the office would be the open documents, etc. You'd just walk around your house in what (at the time) felt like 3D.
--
http://fairsoftware.net/ [fairsoftware.net] -- where software developers share revenue from the apps they create
Wasn't MS Bob 3D already ? (Score:3, Funny)
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Re:I love 3D (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that your monitor is still in two dimensions- so what benefit do you get with a 3d interface that you constantly need to translate back in to 2 dimensions?
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You think the next iteration of the MacBook is going to be a giant cube? Or a sphere perhaps?
I don't know about you, but I'm not putting any stupid cube or sphere in my backpack, thankyouverymuch.
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Sounds vaguely NSFW. Or at least something I wouldn't necessarily want in my backpack.
Re:I love 3D (Score:5, Funny)
But the directions clearly said not to taunt super fun ball.
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uh...hello...helmet???
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There are various technologies that use a combination of screens and glasses to create a stereoscopic 3d effect. They're pretty cool.
Most prevalent is some form of polarization; either building the screen to display two differently polarized pictures (filtered by the glasses) or rapidly switching between two images while alternating the polarization of the glasses synchronously. And then, of course, there's the age-old trick of mixing stereoscopic images in two different color channels and filtering them wi
Re:I love 3D (Score:4, Informative)
They'll need to solve the motion sickness problem for some people first. I got quite sick at a 3D IMAX production, I think called "Deep Sea" a number of years ago. They had these big polarized goggles that would sit on your head and you would get a 3D effect from looking around. The problem was, as far as I could tell, was that any movement in 3 dimensional space was not accompanies by movement of the inner ear. So my eyes were thinking I was moving along the sea floor, but ears said "no way". I ended up taking them off and watching the movie in 3D. I was OK by the end of the movie.
Second experience was riding on the Aladdin carpet ride at Disney World/EPCOT in Florida. I believe this is the virtual ride developed by Randy Pausch of Carnegie Mellon, the guy that gave that great speech when he got cancer. I got really sick on this one, in fact ended up puking after the ride. It was similar, one part of my brain said that I was moving in space but other parts said "no way". I am a sailor and was training to be a pilot, and hadn't been seasick in years... but this ride made me hot, sweaty and eventually pukey. Nastiest experience I have had in years.
I am assuming that the display, if just used for navigation, won't have a lot of movement that might induce motion sickness. After all, I can look around in space now without a problem, changing focus on things near and far, looking from right to left etc. So maybe it won't be any kind of problem. I can tell you I won't be a first adopter though! Blech!
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The problem is that your monitor is still in two dimensions- so what benefit do you get with a 3d interface that you constantly need to translate back in to 2 dimensions?
I don't completely disagree with you, but you must consider that what we meat-spacers generally experience *visually* as 3-dimensions is actually just a stereoscopic 2D image. Tie you to a chair with your arms bound, and that's really all there is to experience.
I wear glasses that are smaller than my visual range, thus a ring of blur constitutes my peripheral vision. I am, if you would entertain it a moment, viewing the world through a "screen". The fact that objects at distance "react" 3-dimensionally
Re:I love 3D (Score:4, Insightful)
The same benefit you get from running a 3D game instead of a 2D one.
The fact is, desktop has never been 2D. It has always been 3D. The shadows under a button that make it look pushed or not are a 3d effect, even if it's implemented as a black shadow in a bitmap.
You can have top or botton windows. That's 3D aswell.
3D desktops will not be about having a "3D room" in your desktop. They will be normal desktops just like they're today. The difference will be that instead of drawing a bitmap with a black line to make a button look like it's pressed, you'll have a 3D engine and the toolkit will tell the 3D engine: "move the button x pixel in depth" - and the engine will move the button and will draw the shadows according to the surrounding objects.
IOW, you'll have a 3d engine powering your desktop, managing not just your windows (beryl can do that today), but also your widgets. Or icons. Icons won't be just a 2d bitmap/vector image, they will be a 3d object that will react to events with all kind of 3D effects - rotation, lighting, jumping, smoke...whatever
As expected, it seems that Apple has the lead. It's a shame that nobody in Linux is doing something similar. It's an oportunity to take lead in the desktop.
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I agree with your post for the most part but Apple isn't leading here:
http://bumptop.com/ [bumptop.com]
http://www.sun.com/software/looking_glass/ [sun.com]
They may "lead" in bringing something like this to the market quicker (like they did with desktop composition) but they didn't invent this stuff. Certainly not patent worthy.
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It's a shame that nobody in Linux is doing something similar. It's an oportunity to take lead in the desktop.
Sun's Project Looking Glass has been running on Linux for about 3 years now. The hard part is not the 3D effects, but coming up with a way of making it usable. If Apple has figured that part out, I expect it will be copied by everyone else in short order.
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I hate to break it to ya, but your retina is 2d interface. We seem to get along fine with it ina 3d world. :)
Settle Down (Score:2)
People are way too worked up over this in regards to functionality, IMHO. It's just some 3D eyecandy over the top of a basic virtual desktop setup. Don't a number of OSS window managers offer 3D cube styled virtual desktop environments already? Most of them map to the outside of a cube this one just maps to the inside.
I am hopeful this fixes the dock. Apple made the dock a lot less useful with 10.5, stacks being the most useless "innovation." By adding some depth to the stack it might become useful.
On t
Re:Settle Down (Score:4, Interesting)
I think more realism in metaphor implementation would definitely help people crossover to computers easier. File organization, menus and multiple windows are a tough one for most folks. Being able to understand how three dimensional physics affects pieces of paper (documents), photographs, application windows (needs a good metaphor that doesn't conflict with paper documents) and folders for keeping it all in will help a lot of people who can't grok it as is.
A lot of people bitch and moan about "terrible eye-candy". It might slow you down some, but for a lot of people visual hints and metaphors are the only way to understand this stuff.
Work in any kind of design field for a while and you start to appreciate how simple visual hints help or hinder people. Being able to intuitively grok the way anything from a toaster to a can opener to an operating system works without having to really think about it is a Good Thing.
I agree though, you shouldn't be able to patent a metaphor, an algorithm or an analogy. It's just dumb.
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The first time I saw the idea of 3D navigation for the desktop was when Hypercard came out (was that 10, 15 years ago?).
HyperCard [wikipedia.org] came out 21 years ago.
Actually (Score:2)
They did not get rid of the buttons on trackpad, they added more. You now have 2 buttons on the trackpad for left and right click. They are just not "proper" buttons, more like an area on the trackpad that can get depressed when pressure is applied and the make a clicking sound.
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I'm wondering if they have thought of some fancy 3 or 4-finger gestures to move around in 3D. I can think of some games that could use that.
I guess this is the time for me to patent / claim prior art (idea) of a special "track sponge" tracking movement in 3D space of a special "fat finger."
I was thinking about fat finger tracking on current track pads but immediately understood that it wouldn't work very good for navigation in 3D space.
And yes, using three fingers for forward/back/strafe and then two + clicking left finger for fire would be quite cool :D, it's a mouse without the mouse! :D
And if you started to move the middle finger vertically
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I'm using one now. Right-clicking and scrolling are simple and customizable. Plus the scaling, rotating and three- and four-finger gestures are pretty useful. My biggest complaint is that the three- and four-finger gestures are not customizable, and there's no way to turn on 'middle button' sup
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Please, STFU if you have nothing useful to say (Score:5, Informative)
It's also obvious that if you've ever used an apple portable, you've never bothered to look at the preference pane for configuring the pointer (trackpad or mouse). Their is a checkbox present that says "Ignore accidental trackpad input" that works flawlessly. There is also a checkbox that says "Ignore trackpad when mouse is present"
Please, if you've never actually used a piece of equipment, don't give your ignorant opinion on it. It'd be like me giving you my opinion of Halo 3. Never played the game so have no worth while input on the topic.
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One more thing I should have patented! (Score:2)
First post ?
Oh no, second post :-( (Score:2)
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KRAMER: Look at this, they are redoing the Cloud Club.
JERRY: Oh, that restaurant on top of the Chrysler building? Yeah, that's a good idea.
KRAMER: Of course it's a good idea, it's my idea. I conceived this whole project two years ago.
JERRY: Which part? The renovating the restaurant you don't own part or spending the two hundred million you don't have part?
Guess they haven't heard of... (Score:3, Informative)
This clearly shows that the patent system is broken. Sun have been working on a 3D Desktop since the early 2000s.
More info: http://www.sun.com/software/looking_glass/ [sun.com]
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Re:Guess they haven't heard of... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do people always concentrate on the compiz cube?
Along with the windows opening/closing animations and the wobbly effect, the cube ranks among the most useless effects in Compiz (though I must admit I like the windows effects a lot somehow)
Expo, fading, windows preview, all the magnifier and zoom functions, the shift switcher, along with the shelf functions are actually very useful (and productivity enhancing, once you get past the WOW effect), but somehow nobody ever talks about them. Hell ... even the water function is useful, as it can be used as a silent (and cool looking) system beep.
Yes, they are also very pretty and geeky, but so what? just because something does look cool doesn't mean it's useless
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I would not say that this filing itself shows that the system is broken, since the filing has not yet been approved. If the filing does get approved, however, then that would clearly indicate a broken system. Not that the patent system has not already previously been clearly shown to be broken, though, due to the countless other obvious/ridiculous patents that have actually been approved to date.
Re:Guess they haven't heard of... (Score:5, Informative)
That's like saying that since cars have existed for over 100 years it is impossible to get a patent on a new development for a car.
Looking at the claims, this patent is (unsurprisingly) not trying to claim the use of 3-D technology in a computer GUI. Instead, look at independent claim 1:
The Apple application is for the use of a room-like setting where there is organization of visual elements along the "floor", "walls", and "ceiling" of the room. This is definitely different than looking glass, about the closest thing I've seen would be a demo from Qt on a Wolfenstein + desktop elements interface: see video here [trolltech.com]. However, it is unclear if the Wolfenstein demo actually anticipates the claims of this patent on two grounds: 1. the use of a static room could be different enough from the use of a maze, and the Wolfenstein demo does not stack & arrange elements like Apple is claiming) and 2. The Apple invention likely predates the WolfQt code.
Additionally, as is often the case with Slashdot, the readers do not understand the difference between a granted patent and a patent application. This is ONLY an application, and as any patent practitioner knows, what you originally apply for is often much different than what you eventually get granted as a patent.
Finally, before everyone in here panics that Linux will be illegal in 2 weeks or some other nonsense, just look at the subject matter that Apple is patenting: It's a stupid room with windows pasted on the wall! Who cares!! Even if Apple gets the patent, just don't go out and copy them and you'll be fine. The attitude of panic on here is actually indicative of a deeper fear. It's not that patents "stifle innovation", but instead that patents mean you can't just make a direct knock-off of some other UI which is what really freaks some people out.
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Well those clowns already granted Apple patents for certain hand gestures. Soon they will start allowing Jobs to patent jacking off techniques too.
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I couldn't test it (I am on PPC) but I tested near everything claiming 3D concept of interface even including the Linux ones I built from source.
If Apple is the company which made a Mach/NeXT/FreeBSD/BSD Lite and even MacOS mixture "easiest used Desktop ever", I wonder if they would be the ones to make a really usable 3d desktop.
There is another patent from Apple about gestures being done without touching the screen surface. It was a story recently. When you mix both, something promising may happen.
Procting for the future. (Score:3, Interesting)
This may not yield to a product. It is just a Patent. So if apple does come up with a 3D desktop no one else can sue them stating it is theirs. 3D computing has been in peoples imaginations for years. Remember Star Wars Ep. 4 back in the 1970's.
We may get a real 3d interface in January but probably 5-10 years down the line as Human Interface interaction has gotten more advanced and intuitive vs. the old mouse method. Gestures, and better ways of tracking your hand have made 3d Manipulation more feasible.
3D (Score:2, Informative)
So the new Apples will have holographic displays? If not, it isn't 3D, it's perspective [wikipedia.org] .
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Not necessarily. As mentioned before, with something attached to your head (such as special polarized glasses, or infrared emitters) it is possible to get real 3D effects without using a hologram.
For example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw [youtube.com]
Prior art? (Score:2, Informative)
Multi-head computing (Score:2)
I get the feeling they haven't fully considered the use of multiple displays under this interface, this being the only paragraph even mentioning them.
E.g. if each display is a walled-off tube, how do
Story about a Software Patent (Score:2, Interesting)
Am I crazy, or is this an unskeptical report of Apple attempting to get a software patent?
Knowing Steve Jobs this is unlikely to be a defensive patent, either. He may actually expect to be able to sue people to stop writing software that seems like his software.
How sleazy. How ridiculous.
You cannot patent software. Period.
People who pretend we can are con men and shakedown artists.
I don't care if it's GIF compression or one click buying or a goddamned 4D desktop. It can not be patented.
You only have one cho
N-dimensions -1 (Score:4, Interesting)
Setting aside for a minute the fact that data storage is already a multidimensional representation on any modern computer..
The most efficient way to manipulate that data is in a 2D matrix. That's because we can see all of it at once -- at least, as much as can fit on the display and/or our arc of vision. If we lived in 4 spatial dimensions, it would make sense to represent data in 3 dimensions, because we could see all 3 of them at once (assuming we had 4D sensory input.. whatever that might be). Creating a 3D representation of data might look cool, but it's just not efficient to work with for any amount of data beyond 2-3 items. See: Win-Tab in Vista, Stacks in OSX. It's not that we need better ideas for how to represent data in 3D, rather it's a physical limit that we need to accept and stop trying to do it "because we can."
If you still don't buy that, imagine living in 2 dimensions (which is probably easier than imagining 4). We exist only on a plane, and objects can be represented only on the axises around us; nothing above or below, and we could only see the 180 degree arc from left to right. It would make no sense to represent data as more than a 1D line. Sure, we could send a line to the front or back, but working with a set of data would be most efficiently accomplished along that line.
It's always more efficient to work with a set of data in 1 less dimension than you exist in. (Unless you live in 1D.. then I guess you're screwed.) There's a reason we don't use a 3D writing system. There's a reason we don't stack monitors one behind the next. Store it in 3 dimensions, fine, as a book, or as a stack of 2D windows, but use it in 2 dimensions. A 3D desktop is form over function in the worst sense.
welcome to 1999 (Score:4, Interesting)
Back around 99, I remember installing a little OpenGL accellerated 3D desktop for Win98. At the time, I had an STB Permedia2 based card (full OpenGL ICD) and it was one of the very few cards that could run this "desktop" of sorts. Icons could be placed ANYWHERE in a 3D field and I could navigate 3D space around them. I could move through all three axis, rotate, do all kinds of things, even lose icons if I placed them in an area of 3D space too far away from the rest of the desktop stuff. It was neat for about 6 days, then I stopped using it.
I'm sure I still have a copy of this in my CD graveyard. I'll look for it later and post up something when/if I find it.
Re:It's a unix system! I know this. (Score:5, Funny)
Lex:It's a UNIX system! I know this!
Me: NO ITS NOT!
Usher: Please leave.
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Re:It's a unix system! I know this. (Score:5, Informative)
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Lex:It's a UNIX system! I know this!
Me: NO ITS NOT!
Except it was--it was a 3d navigation system made for SGI. I believe the Linux port is called fsv or something like that, but don't quote me on that last.
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Well at least there is a ton of prior art like compiz etc.
I remember in the end of the 90's at an oil company i worked for,
we had 3-4 SGI machines that used an array of projectors to create
a 3d world for the engineers to explore the ground. You used a glove
and cloud pull apart the different geological layers and pull down
menus with your hand.
The US patent system is def. screwed if they pass something like this.
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Jobs is not an inventor (Score:5, Insightful)
Jobs is a marketer. What happens is a programmer gets a cool idea, writes a prototype, and sends it up to the execs for review along with a dozen other ideas. Then jobs gets baked, reads through proposals, sees the cool one and goes "OMG I can so sell that to millions of n00bs! A brilliant marketing plan for this just popped into my head! I will 0wnz j00r w0rldz with my reality distortion field muahahahahahahaha!!" Developers get paid, Jobs is triumphant, and the result is not perfect but pretty good, incredibly stylish, and everyone except the most die hard slashdotters and luddites will want one.
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