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Posts Tagged ‘Touch Technology’

About time touch screen laptops and desktop computers are finally flooding the market. As early as the end of October Hewlett-Packard is shipping several desktop and laptop touch screen models, and a few more by the end of the year. All new HP models will have Windows 7.0 operating system.

Although HP wasn’t first to introduce touch screen computers into the market, as Dell already had a $2000 version debuting in spring, TouchSmart series are definitely aimed at average consumers. Toshiba will also have a few touch screen laptops coming out at the beginning of November. Toshiba Satellite models will attempt to attract customers with their newly designed Toshiba Life Space featuring Bulletin Board – for day to day activities, tasks, and projects, and Realtime – interactive and user friendly way to browse files, photos, documents, videos and more.

So what is it so special about the upcoming HP TouchSmart computers? Well first of all it’s the price. Considering cutting edge technology – think iPhone for a second, about $500 on the market – now picture a screen 10 times bigger, with a lot more apps and features – starting at $799, HP TouchSmart series computer is a steal! Wireless, powerful, and incredibly elegant with at least 20″ (up to 25″ of full 1080p) of touchable surface is ready to take a designated spot in the family room or even your kitchen.

Laptops are also available and will feature a touch screen that can be rotated 180 degrees and used as a tablet. Users can draw and write by hand and/or use an electronic pen to satisfy their creative needs. It will also feature a webcam and “photo booth” interactive touch screen app. Hulu, Netflix, Pandora, Recipe Box and many other touch enabled apps are also included in both laptops and desktop pc’s.

Windows 7.0 OS has a few benefits of its own. Designed particularly for fast-growing touch technology, useless background activities are eliminated for faster loading and turn-off times, as well as greatly improved and simplified operating system to sufficiently increase battery life. Finally Microsoft is headed in the right direction.

HP has a good selection of possible upgrades to the desired system. Up to 2.93Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 8GB of RAM, 1TB of space, 1GB NVidia GT230M video card, Gigabit LAN, 25.5″ 16:9 Widescreen touchscreen surface, TV Tuner and a wide range of applications will be available within a few months. Screen can also be used with gaming consoles (Wii, PS3, Xbox360) as well as full compatibility with all digital cameras, video and storage devices.

Consumers can finally indulge in a new interactive way of browsing through web pages, photo albums, and video collections at a touch, flick, whisk, or a tap of a finger. Digital content can now be explored with the multi-touch functionality.

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Rumors have been spreading that Apple has something unique in mind for the upcoming holiday season for quite some time. And that something is the so called Apple Touch Tablet. Although everybody was dead wrong in predicting the September announcement of the mystery device by Apple (never happened) and already nearing end of October without any news on the gadget, it is unlikely that any such device will make it to the Christmas wish list.

Tech community does agree that Apple’s touch technology is expanding into a larger spectrum of devices – particularly tablets – and some sources even claim they’ve seen the damn thing, but no hard evidence is available, at least for now.

So what is it that drives the industry wild in guesswork and uncertainty? Well it’s the fact that market is now getting flooded with touch sensitive laptops and desktops (Read about HP TouchSmart PC’s) and a wide range of touch phones, mp3 players, and digital cameras is already available. Other than a $300 price reduction on iMacs and cheaper iPhone models, Apple has not really impressed us since a few years ago. Latest news were iPhone 3GS and great revenues in the third quarter, but other than that, public is biting on nails of what is to come! With that in mind, let’s see what the fuss is all about.

Rumor has it Apple is coming out with a Touch Tablet. It is about 10″ wide with already well known home button at the bottom – basically a large iPhone but without calling capabilities. Price is probably another well rumored part of this equation – $699 to $799. It is hard to imagine what such device will do, considering an entire line of HP TouchSmart computers is coming out at exactly $799 range. We are talking about 10″ Apple Tablet vs 20″ fully functional touchscreen desktop HP (Which is coming out at the end of October – 22nd to be exact). So what is it that justifies the price?

It seems that Apple can go a few ways with this device. One way is to allow the device to serve a secondary screen for iMacs and MacBooks, however useless that may seem. Or go another way and create a hybrid small enough to carry in a bag, and big enough to comfortably browse web, watch videos, read e-books or digital newspapers, and enjoy fully integrative musical assortment. It is also possible for the tablet to run either Snow Leopard OS or iPhone OS. Rumors lean towards the latter. One version will have a camera and one will not. It seems like Apple is positioning the new device right in the middle between the iPhone and the MacBook. It will also feature 3G and Wifi capabilities.

This doesn’t sound like anything ground breaking. iTouch already does all of these wonderful things for a quarter of the price. Larger screen simply does not add up. It does however make sense in terms of increased functionality and accessibility – larger keyboard, better resolution, and most importantly a longer lasting battery underneath a bigger screen to accommodate even most demanding users. Apple always wanted to get into the netbook business and this market is currently far behind quickly growing smartphone industry.

Its been established that Apple has been working hard on the gadget for a rather long time, continuously changing and redesigning the device to keep up with current standards and demands. New release date has now shifted towards beginning of 2010. The only thing for sure is that “time will tell” and it is still to early to judge, considering the fact that this project might even flop. Let’s brace ourselves for the upcoming months and welcome Apple’s Touch Tablet with open minds!

In order to take a bite out of the Apple iPad, the multi-tasking gadget soon to hit the hands of fans, Amazon acquired Touchco, or so it is suspected. Touchco is a start-up company based in New York that specializes in touch screen technology.

With no commercially released products, Touchco is a new company that began their project at the Media Research Lab at New York University. Touchco has a small staff of six, and they have created flexible technology and multi-touch technology that will allow the touches of several users on a device simultaneously.

Although a mute subject with Amazon and Touchco reps., it is said that Amazon will move Touchco staff members to Cupertino, CA. This is where the Kindle hardware division is housed. Now, what is so great about Touchco technology? It is called interpolating force-sensitive resistance. Only costing about $10 per square foot, it can be put into transparent displays. Currently, iPad and iPhone capacitive touch screens that are used are more expensive, and unlike the Touchco technology, it doesn’t detect an unlimited amount of simultaneous touch points.

The technology can tell the difference between a finger-touch and the pressure of a pen. It does this by utilizing resistors that are sensitive to different levels of pressure. Touchco’s technology works with full-color LCD like the iPad and up and coming Hewlett-Packard’s tablet PCs.

E-Ink may be close to dying out because with the entry of the Touchco technology, Amazon can offer the world a full-color touch screen Kindle. This isn’t intended to put down the e-ink technology. It is great for reading long books, but can lag while viewing reference works, multimedia and other sources of entertainment.

Amazon can’t stay stagnant. They can lower the price of the Kindle to fight against the iPad, or come up with a new gadget that tops the iPad. The acquisition leads to an assumption that Amazon is going to fight. Also we may see the end of the cumbersome keyboard, and shiny new virtual one.

Amazon recognizes the importance of competing with Apple. They are creating apps that are like current iPhone and eventual iPad apps. If Amazon wants to stay on top of the market with Kindle, a new and updated version is needed. Many owners may be in the process of retiring their e-reader, opting instead, for the more modern iPad from Apple.

Just an interesting addition, if you go to Touchco’s website or YouTube page, you will find no information. In fact, on their website they left a message that reads, “Thank you for your interest in Touchco. As of January 2010, the company is no longer doing business.”