touchscreen

Apple may have got its indecently-skinny MacBook to market first, but Lenovo is counting on a one-two punch to give it the edge with its LaVie Z notebooks, freshly on sale. Announced back at CES 2015 in January, the pair of ultrabooks each pack a 13.3-inch multitouch display - the LaVie Z 360 is a convertible, with a 360-degree rotating hinge to twist it into a tablet - and a fifth-gen Intel Core i7 processor, for a hefty nine hour battery life while tipping the scales at as little as 1.87 pounds.

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Most might be familiar with the way fingerprints can be used to uniquely identify individuals, but anyone who has watched a few seasons of CSI will probably know by now that a lot of other body parts can be used similarly. Parts like ears and palms, which, coincidentally, are body parts other than fingers that also get in contact with smartphone screens. Bearing that in mind, researchers from Yahoo have found a way to turn ordinary smartphone touchscreens into makeshift biometric scanners for these body parts.

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This morning Acer announced what they suggest is the industry's first Chromebase All-In-One Desktop with Touch Display. We know good and well that this isn't the first Chromebase device in the world - there's an LG Chromebase as well, for example - but it IS the first Chromebase All-In-One machine with a touchscreen monitor. This bit trumps the LG Chromebase we saw about a year ago, of course. And just so you're aware - this is one of the few product announcements you'll see today, April 1st, April Fools' Day, that isn't a prank.

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We've had cheap and cheerful Chromebooks, and expensive, high-end flagships like Pixel, but ASUS has finally delivered a premium-feeling Chrome OS convertible at a price you'll do a double-take at. Intended to raise the stakes for Windows notebooks, not to mention undercut more than a few tablets, the ASUS Chromebook Flip manages to deliver a Full HD IPS touchscreen, a convertible hinge, and fully metal construction for just $249.

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You might have a perfectly functional desktop monitor that meets all your needs, except one: touch support. Touchscreens have become such a familiar part of your computing habits that you might find yourself flicking or tapping the screen on occasion, only to remember that it lacks such functionality, relegating you to the use of a mouse. The DuoPad trackpad is a novel solution for this problem, lending touchscreen functionality to non-touchscreen displays using a large laptop-like trackpad with a little added technology.

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Even though Apple's new pressure-sensitive technology has yet to be verified in real-world massive usage, sources familiar with the matter are claiming that Cupertino is so confident in Force Touch that it will actually be putting it inside the next iPhones to be announced later this year. This will bring a more subtle form of functionality that is already well known on smartphones and tablets, adding an element of pressure sensitivity to mobile screens that have previously been available only with active digitizer pens or Bluetooth styluses.

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The HP Spectre x360 is, if you're brave enough to play Devil’s Advocate, the Windows notebook you create when you channel Apple levels of obsessive-compulsion. Latest in HP’s high-end ultraportable family, the new Spectre isn’t just a capable aluminum laptop but a turning point in involvement between an OEM and Microsoft: a never-before-seen investment in time, energy, and Very Clever People. In fact, you could well argue that the Spectre x360 is the Surface Laptop that Microsoft refuses to make. I caught up with both companies to get my hands on their collaborative aluminum slab, and find out what makes it really special.

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One of the largest ongoing critiques against the iPhone has been the fairly large bezels above and below the display. With Apple's flagship mobile device still sporting a circular home button, there's been little to shave off and maintain the iPhone's symmetric look. If Apple ever does decide to reduce, or eliminate, the home button, there would be nowhere to put the Touch ID fingerprint sensor, right? Maybe not, as a recent patent discovery hints that Apple may one day implement the sensor directly into its touchscreens.

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...and that is not a typo. Back in the early days of smartphones, Blackberry was the undisputed heavy-weight champion. Everybody who was anybody at the time owned a Blackberry phone. One of the main features of Blackberry’s was the keyboard; as tiny as it was, but people loved typing away on it. Hoping to recapture some of that former glory, A company called Typo introduced an iPhone case that makes your phone look eerily like a Blackberry. Online posts and comments started, and Of course, Blackberry saw it as well. They were not too amused by this, resulting in a major lawsuit in January last year. The former king of cell phones just won this lawsuit and now Typo has to pay up.

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Sit-stand desks have gone from curiosity to legitimate ergonomic boon, and smart desk startup Stir is back with a new, cleverer and more affordable take on the standing desk. After surprising us with a touchscreen-controlled, high-end desk back in late 2013, the new Stir Kinetic Desk M1 takes the lessons of that $4k behemoth and translates them into something faster and more flexible. I caught up with the Stir team to find out why swifter touch, US-made hardware, and the power of both wearables and the cloud make the new model special - and, most importantly, whether people actually care about changing position once the novelty has worn off.

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Judging by the recent spate of announcements, we might be seeing a lot of in-vehicle infotainment announcements soon, probably at CES 2015 next month even. But while cars are getting smarter this way, they are also bound to get more expensive because of the addition of touchscreens. Automotive supplier Continental thinks it might have a better, cheaper option. Using infrared technology, any surface, even a non-capacitive display, can become a multi-touch input device that can be used even with gloves on.

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Anyone who has ever tried to use a touchscreen keyboard knows immediately the issue with those. The keys lack any tactile feel. Without tactile feel, it's hard to tell if you have your fingers in the correct location for touch typing and it's hard to tell when you have actually pressed the keys. This is why many people opt for external keyboards when they need to type a lot.

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