Microsoft had plans for its own version of the MacBook Touch Bar

Microsoft had plans for its own version of the MacBook Touch Bar – 15 years ago

Nov04

by Sindy Cator on November 4, 2016 at 4:35 pm

Last week, Apple unveiled its new and improved MacBook Pro featuring a slick OLED-powered keyboard display called the Touch Bar. While technophiles were quick to compare it to Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 Carbon adaptive keys, Microsoft has also been toying with adaptive keyboard technology for at least 15 years. The concept for ‘adaptive hardware’ – as the Microsoft dubbed it – was initially born in 1999 with the intent to build responsive action keys that show and hide parts of the keyboard based on context. Headed by the company’s director of research Steven Bathiche, the Windows -maker spent years experimenting with keyboard technology that changed the…