HP is Compliling the Rosetta Stone of Multitouch Gestures

PCMag.com has an interesting story about HP compiling a "Touch Dictionary" of gestures according to culture. The article quotes Phil McKinney, the vice president and chief technical officer of HP's Personal Systems Group, as saying:

"What we also uncovered is that there literally are touch dialects," McKinney said. "Just as I can be walking down the street and hear someone and say, 'oh, they're from Texas,' or 'they're from the Bronx'. It's the same in touch, really. In the U.S. we touch with a single finger. In certain parts of the world, it's impolite to point with a single finger. They won't even point at a device with a single finger. They'll point with two fingers. People will point with their thumbs."

Obviously he's right. Unfortunately, HP doesn't have any plans of releasing their multitouch Rosetta Stone to the community at large - I suspect they see it as a competitive advantage. I think it would probably a good idea if the multitouch community also started to catalog local-based gestures so that everyone can benefit. I'll had that to my long list of projects.