Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Applies For Page-Turn Animation Patent
eldavojohn writes "Ever seeking to out innovate their competition, Microsoft has applied for a patent on animating page flips in devices like the Nook or Kindle. The application summary reads, 'One or more pages are displayed on a touch display. A page-turning gesture directed to a displayed page is recognized. Responsive to such recognition, a virtual page turn is displayed on the touch display. The virtual page turn actively follows the page-turning gesture. The virtual page turn curls a lifted portion of the page to progressively reveal a back side of the page while progressively revealing a front side of a subsequent page. A lifted portion of the page is given an increased transparency that allows the back side of the page to be viewed through the front side of the page. A page-flipping gesture quickly flips two or more pages.' Maybe you've seen this before?"
Doesn't matter if it's been seen before, if you have a boatload of cash you need a boatload of defensive patents to keep the parasites who don't produce a thing off your back. Maybe companies like MS, that actually make stuff (whether you think their stuff is good or bad) and contribute, should just be auto-granted immunity from all that bullshit. As it is right now they have to think of and officially enumerate everything they don't want some worthless sleazeball non-company looking for a quick buck coming after them for.
Didn't the "Notepad" "Desk Accessory" in the Original (old-school) MacOS do page-turn animation?
All the physical books on my bookshelf. Making a computer mimic the real world is 100% obvious.
I've seen that on a tactile touch display that even varies in thickness as a number of pages are turned and it is powered by the kinetic energy of the gesture.
Its called a god damn book.
This was requested back during the Courier development years, and filed in January of 2009. So no, there was no prior application or device on the market that did this. And it damn sure isn't a copy of the iPad. This headline is sensationalism at it's best.
They didn't patent the implementation (which is unpatentable, even if it's a lot of work), they patented the look and feel. And the look and feel of this feature has been around for many years, implemented by other people who had to work a lot harder on ancient 3D hardware to make this look good.
This patent is theft and fraud, pure and simple.