Microsoft was developing its own Touch Bar long before MacBook Pro unveils [VIDEO]
Recently Apple uncovered its latest magnetizer MacBook Pro. The magnetic device features a slick OLED-powered keyboard display called the Touch Bar. The technology is regarded to be revolutionary of course, but it seems to portray somewhat similarity with Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 Carbon adaptive keys from 2014.
However, Lenovo surrendered its touchpad after a series negative feedbacks which it received due to lacking in proper implementation. Now, if recent insights have something to go by, then Microsoft seems to be examining this innovative creation of adaptive keyboard since last 15 years.
According to The Verge, the concept for adaptive hardware was primarily initiated in 1999. The pioneer in adapting this revolution in early technology was solely Microsoft. The motif was to develop such a computer which could display the action keys and hide other parts of the keyboard based on context. Steven Bathiche, director of Research Team of Microsoft, took the leadership to investigate the possibility of such an advancement at that time and spent years in the pursuit to develop such a mesmerizing keypad which can transform their function keys and actions based on applications running on the screen.
Though it was in the primitive stage, but the research and investigation done by Microsoft at that time can be considered as the major stimulator in Apple's latest development of Touch Bar. The tech giant continued its long drawn study and after numerous instances of experimenting and prototyping, finally Microsoft came with its 2009 creation which it regarded as "Adaptive Keyboard".
According to TNW, the major difference which is evident in both the tech creator, Apple and Microsoft's implementation, in this case, is that, unlike Apple's Touch Bar, Microsoft's Adaptive Keyboard was intended as a superlative extension to a usual keyboard, allowing more meaningful and productive user interactions.
Microsoft even had plans to integrate it with its operating system. But, in the later part, the company stopped developing such technology as it was not operating in constructing hardware back then. After that, when the tech giant began to develop computers, it came with the touchscreen technology for its machines. On the other hand, Apple took the charge of developing the former concept with their own touch and brought out this stunning touch bar alongside its new MacBook Pro.