There are all sorts of touchscreens out there. But one of the biggest lines diving, say, an iPhone touchscreen from those found on many tablets, notebooks, and Windows Mobile phones is the line between screens that accept stylus input and those that are finger-friendly. It’s rare to find a touchscreen that can handle both types of input, which is a shame because would be nice to be able to draw on a touchscreen with a stylus then put it down for a moment to type on an onscreen QWERTY keyboard with your fingers.

But it turns out there is a type of touchscreen that can handle exactly that kind of usage. French display maker Stantum has a multitouch display that can handle both types of input. What’s more, the Stantum display can recognize up to 10 simultaneous inputs, which means you can tap away with all of your fingers at once. If that’s the kind of thing you’re likely to do.

Stantum has been making screens like these for more than half a decade, but the folks at Laptop Magazine caught up with the company at Mobile World Congress this week and found that Stantum is partnering with global chip makers that could allow the screens to show up in laptops and tablets soon.

The latest version of the touchscreen also recognizes pressure-sensitive finger input. In other words, a light press generates a light line or dot while pressing down harder nets you a thicker line on the display.

You can watch a video of the screen in action at Laptop Magazine’s web site.

The Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3 is the third consumer-oriented 10 inch netbook from the company. The base model features a new Intel Atom N450 or N470 processor and an updated design, but overall it’s not that different from its predecessor, the IdeaPad S10-2. The S10-3t, on the other hand, is another story.

The IdeaPad S10-3t features a 10 inch capacitative touchscreen display that supports multitouch gestures. The display can be rotated 180 degrees and folded down over the keyboard for use in tablet mode, which means that this tablet-style netbook will go head to head with competitors such as the 9 inch Asus Eee PC T91MT and 10 inch Gigabyte TouchNote T1028X.

Both netbooks will come with Lenovo’s QuickStart 2.0 instant-on software for connecting to the web a few seconds after you hit the power button instead of waiting for Windows to boot.

The Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3 will start at $349.99, while the S10-3t tablet will start at $499.99, with prices going up to $599 depending on how you configure the computer.

More details after the break.

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It’s been almost a year since Asus first showed off a 10 inch Eee PC netbook with a touchscreen display that swivels and folds down over the keyboard for use in tablet mode. But a variation of that netbook has finally made its way to the FCC, which could mean that release is imminent.

Wireless Goodness spotted a few documents related to the Asus Eee PC T101MT at the FCC web page this morning. There’s very little information about the netbook available in the filings, aside from the fact that the laptop will support 802.11b/g/n WiFi. But we can also surmise based on the MT in the name that the Eee PC T101MT will have a capacitative touchscreen display that supports multitouch gestures.

Given the fact that Asus has waited over a year to bring this notebook to market, I’m also going to go out on a limb and predict that it will have an Intel Atom N450 Pine Trail processor rather than the slower Intel Atom Z520 used in the 9 inch Eee PC T91MT touchscreen tablet or the Intel Atom N270 CPU found in most other Eee PC models. And I’m not the only one who thinks so.

Thinking about picking up one of those newfangled multitouch displays for your netbook, but holding off because you’re worried that there won’t be support for multitouch gestures under Linux? It looks like there’s nothing to worry about.

While most versions of Windows 7 (but not Windows 7 Starter) include built-in support for multitouch screens, most Linux distributions don’t yet include support these displays. But that doesn’t mean you can’[t configure them to support it. The folks at France’s ENAC Interactive Computing Lab have put together a video demonstrating multitouch support on a PC running Fedora 12 Linux with what appears to be a 10 inch touchscreen display. You can check out the video after the break.

In order to emulate these results, you’ll need the Linux kernel 2.6.31, a modified version of X.org 1.7, and supported hardware and drivers. So we’re not quite at the point where you can just pick up a netbook with a multitouch display, install Fedora or another Linux distro, and expect to tap your way to bliss with up to 10 fingers on the screen. But we’re getting closer.

via Netbook 3G

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10.1″ netbooks are pretty well dirt cheap right now – there were loads available this Thanksgiving weekend for less than $200, and that looks like a trend that’s going to continue. But what if you want a multi-touch capable device? Those are a bit more pricey.

However, if you’re willing to crack open the plastic housing on your netbook and do a quick solder job you can give you current netbook multitouch super powers for about $120.

eBay seller innotech global has posted a kit which fits “most 10.1″ netbooks.” Specifically, they’ve tested the kit on Acer’s D150 and D250, Sony’s W series, and the BenQ U101. The key here is that innotech’s kits are multitouch – whereas previous kits we’ve seen are just plain-old touch screens.

We’ve  embedded a video clip after the break so you can see the screen in action. One caveat: the seller currently has 0 feedback on eBay, so make sure you’re comfortable before pulling the trigger on a purchase – email and ask questions, and use Paypal to make sure you’re protected.

via Newgadgets.de [translate]

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As I mentioned the other day, the new multitouch version of the Eee PC T91 is now shipping. The netbook has an 8.9 inch touchscreen display and it can be used either in laptop or tablet mode. There are three major differences between the new model and the version that’s been available with Windows XP for the last few months:

1. It supports multitouch gestures.
2. There’s a 32GB solid state disk instead of 16GB.
3. The new model ships with Windows 7 Home premium.

Asus also apparently updated its Touch

But what do those changes mean in terms of real world usage? Kubel at MyT91.info already got his hands on the new model, and he’s posted a series of photos, some initial impressions, and the Asus demo video of the computer’s new and updated Touch Gate software. You can check out the video after the break, but here’s the nutshell version: It’s nearly identical to the earlier software except it supports a pinching to zoom in the photo application.

via Eee PC.it

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Asus is starting to roll out an updated version of the Eee PC T91 touchscreen convertible netbook. Like the unit I reviewed a few months ago, the new model is powered by a 1.33GHz Intel Atom Z520 processor and includes an 8.9 inch touchscreen display that can be folded down over the keyboard for use in tablet mode. But there are three things that set the new Eee PC T91MT apart from the earlier model:

1. It runs Windows 7 Home Premium
2. The touchscreen supports multitouch gestures
3. The solid state disk has been upgraded from 16GB to 32GB

As with a number of other new Asus laptops, the company is offering Eee PC T91MT customers 500GB of free online storge.

You can pre-order the Eee PC T91MT from Amazon for $549. The laptop has a non-removable battery which Asus says is good for up to 5 hours, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth, and supports up to 2GB of RAM, (although it ships with just 1GB).

thanks Urban Strata!

The only Asus netbook that the company builds with a multitouch display is the Asus Eee PC T91MT… and as far as I know, that model hasn’t begun shipping yet. But display maker EELY is showing of an Asus Eee PC 901 netbook that’s been outfitted with an 8.9 inch, resistive multitouch display at FPD 2009 in Japan.

Netbooked got a chance to check out the display in person and shot a brief video which you can check out after the break.

The display is available with either a glossy or anti-glare finish. The company is producing the display for PCs, PDAs, phones, and other devices. I wouldn’t read too much into the fact that EELY was showing off an Asus netbook with the display this week. Companies tend to do their own computer hacking at events like these in order to demonstrate their technologies — it doesn’t mean that Asus plans to launch a touchscreen version of a netbook that has already been pretty much discontinued.

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The Acer Aspire 1410 is a thin and light laptop that has a bunch of features you won’t find in an average netbook, including a high resolution 11.6 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel display, a 1.4GHz Intel Core 2 Solo SU3500 processor, and GMA X4500 graphics which can handle HD video playback. But there’s one thing the Acer Aspire 1410 doesn’t have: A touchscreen. For that, you’ll need to wait for the Acer Aspire Timeline 1820p, which Macles reports is on the way.

The Aspire 1820P will reportedly be the same size and have the same basic specs as the Aspire 1410 (which is also called the Acer Aspire Timeline 1810T in many parts of the world), but it will have a touchscreen display and a swivel that lets you fold the screen down over the keyboard for use in tablet mode.

The screen will support multitouch gestures and the computer will ship with Windows 7, which means it won’t be available until late October at the earliest.

Macles reports that it weighs about 0.67 pounds more than the Acer Aspire 1410, which means the Aspire 1820P will probably weigh around 3.8 pounds.

Microsoft, Apple, TechCrunch, Archos, and a fair number of other companies are throwing some weight behind the tablet concept. And I’ve been pretty skeptical for one major reason: text input. The idea of a handheld device without a physical keyboard for surfing the web, reading eBooks, and watching video seems like a good idea, until it comes time to write an email, leave a blog comment, or even enter a URL. You can do those things with handwriting recognition or on-screen keyboards, but it’s typically not a very comfortable or efficient experience on a tablet style devices with a 7 inch or larger display.

So every time a new rumor about the CrunchPad, Apple Tablet, or Microsoft Courier emerges, I kind of yawn and say to myself, “yeah, like that’ll take off.”

But now I’m starting to think that the Apple Tablet might actually have a shot, if it uses new technology revealed in a recent patent filing. AppleInsider found information detailing a touchscreen that would allow for a combination of “typing, resting, pointing, scrolling, 3D manipulation, and handwriting.” It would detect all ten fingers placed on a touchsreen. And it would be able to recognize and ignore input from your palms.

In other words, you could have a fully functional on-screen keyboard that you can use with 10 fingers much the way you would use a physical keyboard.

My first thought is that it would be hard to type on a screen without the tactile feedback you get from an actual keyboard. But that’s what people said about the iPhone’s on-screen thumb keyboard. And iPhones are selling like hotcakes. Actually, it’s probably hotter. When was the last time you ordered a hotcake?

The patent spells out a number of different ways to interact with the device, including tapping to simulate a mouse click, or using multitouch gestures to manipulate objects on the screen. The display could be adjusted to work with different hand sizes, and users wouldn’t need a mouse or keyboard since everything would be built into the screen.
Of course, it’s possible that these features won’t be built into the upcoming Apple Tablet, but are instead intended for a new input device for Apple computers. But it sounds to me like Apple is trying to do for text entry on tablet style devices what it did for text input on smartphones by reinventing the way we interact with touchscreen displays.

And that could just make the Apple Tablet take off in a way that previous touchscreen tablets haven’t.

On the other hand, I’m still skeptical about the idea of typing on a virtual keyboard covering a display resting on a tablet. Sitting in an office chair and looking at a monitor while typing a way on a keyboard is ergonomically challenging enough. I shudder to think about the back and neck pain associated with hunching over a tablet sitting on the desk trying to type a document while looking at the on-screen display at the same time.