Windows 8 is still in heavy development, and still has a long way to go before it ends up on our desktops, laptops, and tablets. One of the major concerns is how Windows 8 is going to deal with a traditional keyboard and mouse/trackpad combination - especially on non-tablet computers where touch input is pretty much not an option. While Microsoft assures us it's all good, Synaptics decided to see what it, as trackpad maker, can do.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2009-06-24
I remember that. I liked the hardware idea but to me having multi-finger swipe gestures seemed wasteful of all those touch points that could have been used to move multiple sliders at once. They even implied that would be useful earlier in the video.
And it seemed somewhat unintuitive. I can't remember what the gestures did and I can't even figure out what they must have been. And not everybody has that many fingers.
Member since:2010-03-08
Actually, I doubt that being able to move several sliders controls at once would be that useful, at least for current productivity tasks.
-If all those sliders control the same thing, like an audio mixing console, which is what I would expect, then one needs to modify only one parameter at once to be able to fully isolate its effect and decide which value is best. The only operation which can efficiently be made with several fingers as once is muting all console channels before turning off the console and leaving the room 
-If they control independent things, then the human brain's inability to multitask well will come into play, and again make the task a bit painful.
Well, I guess stuff like games could make use of multiple touch points though. Multitouch World of Goo sounded fun.
Member since:
2009-10-04
This reminds me of 10GUI: http://10gui.com/
It seems like a good idea, but only if the touchpad were made bigger and pressure sensitive so that it could display where you are touching before registering a touch as in the 10GUI video.