Back in 2005 Apple purchased a little-known company known as FingerWorks who at the time were quickly gaining recognition for their gesture based technology and multitouch interfaces as above. Today, for the first time, the FingerWorks website went down and remains so. Interesting considering that 27 January continues to loom.

Over the past few years Apple has become obsessed with multitouch controls which have found their way onto the iPhone, iPod Touch, Macbook lineup and even the Magic Mouse. In case you have bee living under a rock, if the rumours are to believed Apple will soon be releasing their tablet device which reports suggest will be loaded heavily with multitouch capability to allow navigation of the operating system.

Reports several weeks ago suggested that the device’s interface may take a little getting used to for some which falls in line with what the New York Times is reporting today. The NYT has stated today that some ‘former Apple engineers’ with experience working on the Apple Tablet suggested that the device makes use of gesture recognition to operate. This is further in line with suggestions this week that Apple has been hard at work on a multitouch version of iWork.

Of course, nobody knows exactly who these ex-Apple employees are and even if they do exist there is no letting whether Apple has since steered the tablet in a different direction. Considering the monumental success of the App Store many sources are speculating, and rightly so that the device will expand on this interface. As always, only time will tell, but its probable that FingerWorks’ technology will have played a large part in the direction Apple takes the tablet device.