July 14 - 3:55pm EDT   Dell this afternoon revealed that it will give its Latitude XT convertible tablet multi-touch support as of Tuesday. The software patch from the company's support site will let the XT's capacitive touchscreen work with several programs in Windows XP and Vista. Owners can zoom in and out using a pinch motion in most web browsers, Windows' built-in photo viewing utilities, Google Earth, and Microsoft Office; a two-finger scroll will also permit scrolling without having to use the mouse. [full story]

July 11 - 12:00pm EDT   Apple may intend to take touch technology well beyond handhelds, notebooks and desktops, a new patent filing suggests. The application mentions, for example, that a camera could be equipped with a touch-sensitive lens body, which would detect gestures to operate controls. People could for instance use a two-fingered combination to change exposure settings -- sliding the index finger around for aperture -- or three fingers to control zoom and focus. [full story]

July 10 - 2:40pm EDT   Apple has been exploring technology that would let it implement a touchscreen interface for its full-size computers, according to new US Patent Office filings. The company has developed methods that would let users edit music, photos, and videos simply by making natural gestures based on controls with analogies to the real world: a DJ could add record scratch effects and mix tracks by turning the records themselves, while a video editor could scrub through clips by dragging along the timeline and a photo tool could use a virtual scroll wheel to quickly flip through photos. [full story]

July 3 - 4:10pm EDT   The US Patent and Trademark Office today published approximately 34 applications from Apple, all of which relate to multi-touch technology. Among these are a means of covering necessary hardware from view, to make devices more visually appealing; a means of distinguishing whether a screen is being touched by flesh or other forms of input, such as a fingernail; and in particular, a unique Apple design for a capacitive touch sensor. [full story]

June 19 - 10:45am EDT   Apple has been developing technology that would let it offer inexpensive multi-touch panels made out of plastic, according to a newly-published US patent filing. The company believes it has discovered a way to drop expensive, thicker glass panels by using polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic without the drawbacks associated with the format. The invention would put near-transparent, capacitive wires in rows on one panel and link them to columns on another. A resulting multi-touch panel could be made out of the low-cost material without being wider than its glass equivalent, as with existing techniques for plastic that put all the wires on the same panel. [full story]

June 11 - 12:00pm EDT   Users should expect multi-touch displays in notebooks well before the release of official operating system updates like Windows 7, Hewlett-Packard's consumer notebook general manager Kevin Frost says. The feature won't officially appear in Microsoft's software until 2010 but should be available "long before" then in shipping products, according to the executive. Technical marketing head Kevin Wentzel supports the notion and mentions that the advancement is more a question developing software than any limits in current hardware. [full story]

May 28 - 1:35am EDT  Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and CEO Steve Ballmer on Tuesday unveiled a small preview of the company's next operating system – tentatively referred to as Windows 7 – at the All Things Digital executive conference. The preview demonstrated the integration of multi-touch directly into all application layers, allowing users to use multiple fingers in Paint, resize and rotate photographs, and performing many actions similar to that of the iPhone. [full story]

May 13 - 8:10pm EDT   Algoriddim on Tuesday unveiled Djay 2.1, a major update to the company's digital turntable software that adds compatibility with Apple's multi-touch trackpads on the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro. Djay uses different sets of finger gestures to control the interface, allowing users to scratch tracks, apply effects, and crossfade between the two virtual tables. Algoriddim is selling Djay 2.1 from its website for $50, and is available now. [full story]

May 2 - 4:50pm EDT   Bridger Maxwell – a 17-year old from Orem, Utah – is currently developing a home-built multi-touch surface for Mac OS X, using a Frustrated Total Internal Reflection (FTIR) imaging method for a high school science project. Already creating a second incarnation, Maxwell improves on his previous design by using brighter LEDs mounted in a wooden frame. He uses an infrared camera to capture finger input, which appears to light up fingertips, when observed. [full story]

April 17 - 3:45pm EDT   Developer Romain Piveteau has released LiveQuartz 1.8, an update to the free graphics retouching application designed for Mac OS X Leopard. The update adds Multi-Touch trackpads support, including 'Swipe' for tools and layer control, 'Pinch & Expand' for magnification and layer zoom transformation and 'Rotation' for layer rotation. There is also a new "free line" tool, a new filter picker, better layer merging, global image resizing, an enhanced user interface and the standard picture taker which gives access to iSight camera. LiveQuartz is aimed at all people that need a photo retouching tool to easy manipulate layers, transparency and non destructive filters, the ... [full story]

March 17 - 11:05am EDT   Apple has developed a technique that could allow for a smaller iPhone with all the controls but half the size, according to a recent WIPO international patent filing. Described as a "dual sided trackpad," the primary variant on the invention would have a translucent cover with a capacitive, multi-touch trackpad that accepts input on either side and can activate controls depending on the pad's position. [full story]

February 21 - 11:00am EST   The US Patent and Trademark office today published five of Apple's patents, describing versatile multi-touch input device and control methods in a wide array of fields. The device appears to be an ergonomic multi-touch keyboard-style device that can accept a wide array of touch commands, including typing, resting, pointing, scrolling, 3D manipulation, and handwriting. The patents involve actions that are simple for the user to know and remember, while the system has little difficulty differentiating between the actions. [full story]

January 21 - 1:45pm EST   The MacBook Pro will receive the multi-touch trackpad features of the MacBook Air in the near future as well as new processors, according to an alleged source supplying information to AppleInsider. The systems should receive new, extra-large trackpads that will allow the same pinch, rotate, and swipe gestures as the ultraportable; a release was planned in the general timeframe of Macworld but was delayed due to a need to switch resources to the MacBook Air, the insider claims. [full story]

December 31 - 10:00am EST   LG Phillips LCD has today revealed some of its first multi-touch displays and is targeting them at users who want to bring the technology to large rooms and public spaces. At 52 and 84 inches, the two new displays are the largest yet to allow more than one point of contact: the 52-inch is the largest contiguous LCD of its kind while the 84-inch model combines four 42-inch screens. An IR sensor registers two points of contact and can also recognize gestures, allowing users to zoom into a map or manipulate a photo with more natural input. Either set functions as a 1080p display that works with most computers and offer virtually the same light output as a view-only display ... [full story]

December 20 - 2:15pm EST   Sony Japan on Thursday unveiled what it says is a solution to the current problems of multi-touch displays. By using a low-temperature polysilicon LCD, the company has successfully interwoven optical sensors into the display surface, creating an exceptionally thin surface that can still respond to visual cues for control, including inorganic devices such as a stylus. This represents a major improvement over current hardware, Sony says. Other multi-touch screens currently require a multi-layer technique that increases the thickness of the display and leaves the input open to quality deterioration if the layers become loose. [full story]