TouchSmarter: Touch Screen Gadgets

Listening to or watching podcasts is great fun. If you think they are boring, meaningless or can’t entertain you during, say, a long fight, you’re wrong. For example, watching all the clips of X-Play, played back on my VGA HP iPAQ 214 (thanks to Smartphone & PPCMag / iPhone Life’s Hal Goldstein for the gift!) could entertain me for long-long hours.

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This is your chance: the impressive Skyfire browser is freely available until August 30. Also, this week there’s lots of device news, including the official announcement of the Palm Treo Pro, the September arrival of the first Android device (from T-Mobile), and Reviews of the HTC Touch Pro.

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If you want to see interesting, then you need to stop by one of the Sheraton Hotels and get a look at the Microsoft Surface Computer in action.  While many people were predicting that the Surface appearing in the real world so to speak was something that would not really pan out.  People would find the table interesting, but within a few weeks it would be business as usual.

Well, there is a very good reason why that will likely not happen and it is one reason that nobody really saw coming.

Working together, Sheraton and Microsoft were able to create an application to be used on the Surface computers that inhabit the lobbies of the various Sheraton hotels.  The application is one that turns the Surface Computer into what can essentially be thought of as a giant jukebox.  Instead of choppy sound and crappy interfaces however, you will have the ultra-modern hardware and software design of the Surface as your jukebox guide.  The result is a more convenient, better quality jukebox than has ever been created before.

Why is this good?  It is good because one of the stated goals of this partnership was to allow people to play their favourite songs in the hotel lobbies of the Sheratons that had the Surface Computers installed.  With the jukebox program this not only becomes possible, but easy on a very large scale.  One doesn’t have to think long to realize that this could easily be the most popular use for a Surface Computer in a hotel lobby.

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With all due respect to the Microsoft Surface and the Apple iPhone, Multitouch technology is not particularly interesting to the average person on the street.  I know that it’s almost heresy to suggest that touch-screen technology, perhaps the most exciting brainchild of the technological revolution, is actually not really that feasible on the larger scale of things, but that is definitely the view that people have had of the technology for a very long time.

Multitouch technology has been around for years but it is only recently that a real fire has been ignited underneath it with people really thinking about ways to bring Multitouch products to the market.  Whether that was the result of the iPhone, the Surface or something else is really irrelevant at this point.  What is relevant to the conversation is answering the question that was in the title of this post.

And that question is simply one of the future of Multitouch technology.  It used to be a niche technology that never had any hopes of really making it big, but now it seems to be transforming itself into a technology that everyone might be using within a couple of decades.  Windows 7 is set to have Multitouch capability built into it and that is definitely something that will allow people the chance to buy Multitouch interfaces and try things out.

But is it enough for Multitouch to become a respectable and mainstream technology?  That seems to be the big question, but only time will tell.

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We hesitated to post this Engadget article about Kevin Rose’s predictions of new iPods and other iStuff mostly because it seemed too… detailed. That, and as Engadget points out themselves, Kevin hasn’t been a –to put it kindly– very reliable source.

Recycleosphere has a fairly well thought out summary of the rumor mill’s latest predictions, including a thorough picking through Mr. Rose’s comments. They take into consideration some key points about iPod touch price decreases, Microsoft’s position in the PMP game, and an iTunes subscription service that, while considered as any rumor, are well worth reading.

I personally am worried about the suggestion that an “iTunes Unlimited” subscription service could be on the horizon, considering the amount of bungling Apple’s been doing with MobileMe and the AppStore and previously with .Mac. It seems to me that Apple needs a helping hand in designing and maintaining their interactive web stores and web infrastructure.

Natural User Interface (NUI) launches new website today

The new website can be found at: http://www.natural-ui.com

NUI is an innovative emerging technology company specializing in advanced multi-touch software and service solutions.

"Sunnysoft upgrades its Windows Mobile contacts manager Sunnysoft Contacts to version 1.5! Some new features include...

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"Papyrus 2 brings many exciting new features, including: Search View for PIM item searching; Advanced filters management; Automatic attendees notifications, Popup selection effect for optimized display and much more! Papyrus 2 back-end engine was re-designing from the beginning and delivers the fastest experience for the pro user!"

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Peter Bomark, Mikael Bauer and Pawel Solyga of NUI in partnership with Dr. Johannes Hirche of LTU Skelleftea got their whitepaper, regarding multi-touch technology approved for Tabletop ‘08.

The whitepaper “Adaptive interface for text input on large-scale interactive surfaces” will be presented in Paper session 5: Touching the Surface: Gesture and Touch for Surface Interactions.

Find the complete programme here.

Read a previous post here.

Rumors are about that Verizon and Sprint will be offering the HTC Touch Diamond and HTC Touch Pro. Plus, there’s a great video on YouTube of the amazing Touch Pro interface. This week we’ll also note a few reviews of the new HP iPAQ 910 and leaked information about the Treo 850.

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