Microsoft did unveil their spherical Multitouch technology at a recent demo and a number of the different things the spherical surface can do has gotten people talking about the possibilities. While the demo of the Sphere has reignited interest in Microsoft, one of the major areas that have been speculated on recently is gaming.
One of the aspects of the Sphere demo involved a game of pong. This game of pong was, to put it mildly, absolutely ridiculous. There were two circles traveling across the surface of the sphere and the person doing the demo was able to use their hands in contact with the surface to influence the direction of the balls, allowing for a fully spherical and three dimensional game of pong to be played. This was truly amazing and definitely something that is worth seeing in video format across the internet.
However, what does it mean for the future of the computer gaming industry? With spherical surface technology, a number of different things are possible. People can play real time strategy games with a whole new way of thinking and of course old classics can be reinvented in weird and wacky ways just as pong was in the gaming demo that was given by the Microsoft representative. The possibilities for gaming appear endless and because of that many have begun to hypothesize what this type of interface could bring.
In this area at least, it appears as though Microsoft has been able to create new ideas out of thin air and tie all of those ideas to a product they and they alone are currently working on.
This week Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster has sent a note to clients speculating on past years. The reports states that for the last three years Apple has held a Special Event in September and the analyst is predicting the same.
Munster in particular expects iPods to be the focus of the event with the iPod shuffle and iPod nano taking a backseat receiving only capacity increases. On the other hand Munster does expect a price cut for the iPod touch down to $199 with a design change similar to that of the iPhone 3G.
In addition to an iPod announcement Munster also expects a complete overhaul of Apple’s notebook line barring the MacBook Air.
“We note that the MacBook has had the same design since its launch over two years ago, and the MacBook Pro has had essentially the same design since its launch over 2.5 years ago, which was very similar in design to the PowerBook G4 released over 5.5 years ago,” he told clients. “To compare, the long-running iMac G5 design lasted three years.”
Munster expects new looks for both the MacBook and MacBook Pro with the MacBook re-entering the $999 price point bracket.
The Jaffray analyst retains a Buy rating on AAPL with a price target of $250.
KFAR SABA, Israel & AUSTIN, Texas–(BUSINESS WIRE)–N-trig, the provider of DuoSenseâ„¢ technology combining pen and zero-pressure touch for mobile and fixed computers into a single device, announced today that it is offering a software development kit (SDK) for multi-touch gestures to independent service vendors (ISVs) and industry partners. With its revolutionary approach to Hands-on computingâ„¢, N-trig’s SDK can be downloaded on any tablet PC with DuoSense technology.
The multi-touch gestures SDK enables ISVs to add multi-touch functions to current or future applications, providing a more hands-on experience for the user. N-trig’s multi-touch currently enables functions such as rotating, zooming in and out, panning, and pinching. However, this is only the beginning of multi-touch manipulation, and N-trig is continuing to develop its technology and will be releasing more multi-touch features in the future.
“True multi-touch functionality is the future for computing devices,†said Amihai Ben-David, CEO of N-trig. “By providing a platform that offers multi-touch gestures, we are giving ISVs an opportunity to develop new applications. Many major computer companies have recently announced multi-touch technology, and our SDK will enable even more advances in what people are able to do with their computing devices.â€
With its multi-touch gestures SDK, N-trig is setting the stage for ISVs to develop new and exciting technologies and encouraging them to develop applications for future platforms as well. N-trig is the only company that provides pen, touch, and multi-touch capabilities for tablet PCs, and its DuoSense digitizers support Microsoft’s Windows XP and Vista as well as future versions of Windows 7.
For more information, please visit http://www.n-trig.com/Content.aspx?Page=SupportSDK
Compared to the capabilities of desktop multimedia players (see for example the excellent WMP vs Winamp vs iTunes vs MediaMonkey for more info on their capabilities), the mobile ones certainly lack when it comes to fetching, searching for, editing, storing and, in several cases, even accessing / displaying different kinds (album art and/or other images; textual genre / composer / title etc. info; lyrics etc.) of information in audio files.
HP intends to have a notebook with a touchscreen display on the market within the next 18 months, the company has told the Wall Street Journal. The company was one of the first to introduce a mainstream, touchscreen desktop in the TouchSmart series but now says that it sees enough interest in the format to be one of the first with a portable PC offering a heavily touch-driven interface. The company has already introduced a tablet PC for the mainstream through the tx series but still depends on a stylus inside a conventional interface and would like to change the interface to a more natural one for future devices.
“We see touch as the almost preferred method for nontechnical users,” says HP’s Personal Systems Group CTO Phil McKinney.
The company has already hinted these plans but has now set a timetable that would put the release of the future notebook design before 2010, confirming that HP will use a custom interface rather than wait for the release of Microsoft’s Windows 7, which will make touch input a standard feature.
Apple is believed to have helped spur this interest in touchscreen devices through the iPhone but itself has remained silent on a touch interface for its computers, choosing instead to use multi-touch trackpads with more complex gestures.
First came touchscreens. We all loved them on PDAs, and they found widespread use in vertical markets. For may years, they remained relatively unchanged, improving in accuracy, but essentially providing a very static user experience.
When Apple brought multitouch to the masses, it was heralded as one of the greatest innovations in years. Everyone is racing to catch Apple, and its ability to provide intuitive, simple user interfaces relying on touch. However, once you get over the gloss and shine, all Apple really did was build a very good interface… multitouch was only icing on the cake, but certainly not the secret ingredient.
The iPhone has only just recently celebrated its first birthday, but already the progress on the “next big thing” is racing ahead in full gear. Take a look at the following take on a “Minority Report” type interface… makes the iPhone look darn right antique!
The HP Touchsmart IQ500 is a new experience in computing and home entertainment. Instead of dragging your mouse around, you can directly interact with the computer screen.
You only need to plug in one power cable, leaving your desktop nice and tidy and making it look more like a television than a computer. You still have option to a regular mouse but don’t think you will want to use it after watching the video clip below.
The full potential of this computer will not be usable until the Windows 7 operating system is released. However this is still one amazing machine for those who are looking for a computer and home entertainment system rolled into one.
Due to me putting my back out yesterday I wasn’t able to unbox the TouchSmart last night so today I had some help and managed to get the unit unboxed. I IMG_0998recorded an unboxing / first impressions video but to be honest its not until I put it in the living room tonight and started using it that I realised how good the machine is. There is two areas to focus on: The all in one hardware which is packaged in a very sleep design and the HP TouchSmart software which is amazingly tactile and had the whole family eager to play with it
First a quick look at the spec:
* Intel Core 2 Duo T5850 * 4GB Ram * 64bit Windows Vista Home Premium * 465GB hard disk * DVD burner * TV Tuner * 22″ Touch Display * Wifi and Bluetooth * Webcam * Wireless keyboard and mouse * All in one design
The TouchSmart software is beautiful,it looks great, it responds to flicks and presses and I love how the faster you swipe the faster it goes. It can play music, videos, and display pictures, there is a touch based web browser, RSS reader and weather apps. This is something I can only really show off in the video but a measure of it’s success is that my wife said “wow can we keep it” rather than the normal “oh no not another box”. It invites you to touch and play with it. My plan was to buy a new Media Center machine and hide it away but I now can see me going for something like this and have it in the living room (still working as a server for my Extenders as well)
ASUS has touted the multi-touch trackpads of its Eee PCs, but every time I have gone to test the multi-touch controls on the pad I can’t do much more than zoom in on a picture by pinching the pad. I are happy to report that finally Eee PC users are able to do more with their fingers.
Its nothing like the N-Trig multi-touch drivers for the Dell XT, but ElanTech, the company responsible for the smartpad on the Eee PCs, has updated the drivers for the touchpad to enable more multi-touch gestures (you can find the drivers here). Thanks to JKKMobile for tipping us off on the new drivers.
I downloaded the drivers to the Eee PC 1000H running Windows Vista and they worked right away (they should work for XP as well; there is no Linux driver version). In the mouse properties window, an extra ElanTech tab allows for tweaking the different multi-touch gestures.
I was then able to create commands that go along with different gestures. For instance, I configured a two finger tap on the trackpad to launch Firefox. Swiping three fingers down will bring up an ALT+Tab command that allows for moving through windows. Swiping three fingers up will launch My Computer.
You can also do more in a photo gallery program. In Windows Photo Gallery, I was able to pinch to zoom, but also able to rotate the picture with a swipe. It is all very MacBook Air like.
I like the gestures the best in the browser. A three finger swipe will move forward or backward between Web pages and two fingers up and down will scroll through the page.
We’ve recently redesigned our web site, and I’m impressed. It must be among the best Windows Mobile/Smartphone sites on the Internet. This week we’ll also note a video review of the Samsung and other device news, as well as a new version of Google Maps for Windows Mobile.
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