June 03, 2004

• Microsoft said last year that it would be seeking to improve earnings from technology which it claims it invented and would be using its patent portfolio to do so. Bash.
• So who actually first made use of the double-click? Was it Apple with their first GUI? A default function for an application is launched if the button is pressed for a short, i.e., normal, period of time. Love it!
• probably Douglas Engelbart. perhaps in this paper around 1967.
• You've got to be joking. I hope so, especially since the tinyurl links didn't work for me.
• from the first link this sounds like its meant for something like a palm - "limited resource computing device" - and not for a full PC or laptop. so increasing functionality based on the length of time or number of times that you hit a button. press once quickly, program opens; press twice quickly, program opens to the last file you edited; press once for a long time, it does something different. saves you keystrokes (or stylus presses) to get back to where you were. even with the proven idiocy of the patent lawyers in the past, i don't think microsoft could realistically expect to patent the good old standard mouse double-click. (ps - and entirely off thread - why does the term PC usually stand for "windows system" and not for macs as well? isn't a mac a Personal Computer? some would argue it's a more personal computer than a windows box, right?)
• frogs - the nomenclature is a remnant of the IBM PC running Microsoft software (and intel based clones) vs the Apple Mac rivalry. Could you imagine Steve Jobs wanting to be lumped in with the rest of the world?