iPhone Birthed From Purchase of Touch Pioneers FingerWorks?

Everyone I know who has a history in interface design is blown away by the iPhone. Worried about the touch keyboard, but blown away by the rest. This includes a couple of industrial designers, one whom has worked on Apple projects in the past, and another is a veteran of Stanford's Virtual Human Interaction Lab. The consensus is in: How'd they do it?

So how did Apple go from sci-fi demo and laboratory wonder to shipping product so quickly? Simple. They bought the capability, if Silicon Valley innuendo is to be believed. Engadget reports:

Word is getting out of John Elias and Wayne Westerman, co-founders of FingerWorks, who were struggling to keep their dream of gesture-operated gadgetry alive when the company suddenly closed up shop a year and a half ago. Few doubt Apple snapped up the pair, and with interesting touchscreen abilities of the iPhone, it looks like it found a use for the men in some secretive underground laboratory.

Underground labs rule, don't they? It certainly wouldn't be the first time Apple went outside to build a breakthrough if this report is accurate. The iPod was outsourced to PortalPlayer very late in the game, and the original Mac was swapped to the 3.5" Sony floppy drive at the last minute when the company's own Twiggy drives proved flaky. Glad to see some traditions being kept up!

Some iPhone touchscreen roots 'splained by FingerWorks inventors - Engadget:

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