Is There an iMac Touch in Apple’s Future?

Could the next iMac possibly come complete with a touch screen? It has been reported that Sintek Phototronics has been sending samples of its projected capacitive touch screens to Apple. This has led people to ask questions about the next version of the iMac.

The big issue with adding projected capacitive touch screens to the iMac devices concerns the size of the screens. It is very complex to create a projected capacitive touch screen that is larger than 20-inches. iMacs come in 21.5-inch and 27-inch versions. Despite the difficulty of the task, Sintek has a 5.3G plant, which is one of the largest production lines for these screens, so it should not be too hard for the company to figure out the kinks for Apple.

DigiTimes has reported that Apple’s touch screen version of the iMac would feature the touch sensor and cover glass in one single panel instead of the traditional way of placing the cover glass over the sensor. This cuts down on the thickness and weight of the panel.

About a month before this news about Apple’s possible touch screen iMac, it was revealed that Apple had filed for a European patent. This patent was discovered by Patently Apple, but it only described the possibility of switching back and forth between a touch screen mode.

Now all of this is rumor and speculation, but there are other Apple rumors in the past that have turned out to be true. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see if this one is. It would be amazing to have a touch screen iMac made available by Apple. I think that it could definitely be a huge hit. Everything is moving in the touch screen direction, so it makes sense that the iMac goes touch capable as well. Hopefully Apple will give us some sort of statement regarding the rumors soon. Until then, we will all have to wait patiently and see if this development comes about.

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Acer's New Aspire Ethos TouchScreen Laptop

This week, Acer announced its new Aspire Ethos laptops. The laptops have a secondary touchscreen, which doubles as a touchpad. The new technology is meant to help users navigate through multimedia content. The touchscreen is placed below the keyboard where a touchpad would normally be located and it displays movie and music navigation icons. According to spokesperson for the company, the icons allow you to do thing such as adjust volume or go through images.

In a press release, Acer said, "The media console is now combined with the touchpad, providing a set of commands all managed by a single key and a completely new approach to entertainment control." They also stated that the new technology leaves the laptop's surface looking clean and elegant.

According to PC World, Acer is not the only company looking to make touchpads a little fancier. Synaptics is adding gesture functionality, which allows users to perform routine tasks more quickly. They also report that Intel has suggested auxiliary screens that display widgets that allow you to do things such as type Twitter messages replace touchpads.

The new Acer laptops feature Advanced Micro Devices ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5000 series graphics cards, which are great for watching HD DVDs. They can also be bought with Blu-ray Disc drives and they each run Intel's Core i5 or Core i7 processors. The laptops also include Acer's Arcade Deluxe multimedia management software, which allows users to take more advantage of the touchpad controls and makes it easier to share content through YouTube, Facebook, and Flickr.

The Ethos 8943G will have a 18.4-inch screen and the Ethos 5943G will feature a 15.6-inch screen. Each one will have up to 1.28TB of storage through two 640GB hard drives, as well as including Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Release dates and prices are not yet available.

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An Affordable Convertible Netbook Tablet from Lenovo

Many different companies make a variety of different types of netbooks, but not many have adopted the convertible tablet netbook that has been emerging recently. This is probably because is can be a very costly netbook to design and manufacture. Convertible tablets are comparable in weight and size to an ultraportable or thin and light laptop. They look pretty much like a traditional laptop except for the fact that the screen swivels 180 degrees and can fold flat over the keyboard of the laptop. You can utilize a convertible tablet netbook to navigate menus, documents, and Web pages all through the touchscreen.

It’s the rotating hinges and the touchscreen display that jacks the price of netbooks like this up. Pricing is one of the reasons that these netbooks have had trouble taking off, but Lenovo is now offering the IdeaPad S10-3t, which is one of the first reasonably priced convertible tablets to be made available to the public. If you’re at all interested in convertible tablets, the S10-3t is definitely one that you should look into if you aren’t interested in putting out $1000 or more.

I personally thought that the design of the S10-3t was very intriguing. It’s a little bit thicker and longer than most 10-inch netbooks, but this is necessary to accommodate the swivel hinge and the touch panel. The netbook weighs in at 2.9 pounds and comes standard with a 4-cell battery. Many may not like the plain design of the S10-3t, but I thought that it fit the netbook. It features a shiny black top without any fancy detailing.

I find the swivel touch screen to be extremely fascinating. When you rotate it the full 180 degrees, you can then proceed to lay the screen down flat against the keyboard of the netbook. How cool is that? Although many could say that this function is very similar to that of Apple’s iPad, the advantage you have with a convertible netbook is that you have the luxury of a keyboard whenever you want it which can come in handy. The screen on the S10-3t is 10-inches and features 1,024 x 600 resolution. When utilizing the touch feature, you solely use your finger, just like for the iPad or the iPhone. You can use one finger to navigate the screen or use two to pinch and enlarge photos and documents. Due to the fact that the S10-3t’s touchscreen is designed for you to use your finger, it does not feature the handwriting recognition capabilities that some tablets that use a stylus have, but it still performs every other function that you could need.

The keyboard on the S10-3t is almost full size and is very responsive. The netbook’s other features also include: 2 USB ports, a VGA port, an Ethernet port, an SD slot, built-in 802.11n Wi-Fi, 250GB of hard drive, a 1.83GHzAtom N470 processor, 2GB of memory, and Windows 7 Home Premium. A lot of these features can’t be found on most netbooks, so I was impressed.

I really feel like this is a deal if you’re looking for a convertible netbook. Lenovo ships the S10-3t out for $650. This is incredible, as most convertible netbooks start around $1000. I think with all of the features and the impressive price tag, Lenovo has hit a home run with the new ThinkPad S10-3t.

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The Issues with Touchscreens

Touchscreens definitely seemed to be the theme of the Consumer Electronics Show. Everybody is wrapped up in the touchscreen phenomena. There’s touchscreens, touch phones, touch tablets, and 3D entertainment where you can almost “touch” the objects from the movie. Now I know that tons of people love the touchscreen technology, but there are still issues that manufactures are going to have to work out.

All of this “touch” stuff has appeared before the past few years, but it always failed. Before the touch devices of today, the mouse of a computer became a touch item that could be moved around the screen as an icon. This was the first development. Today, the mouse icon has been eliminated to allow our finger to perform actions without the need of an icon.

The iPhone was really the device that made a huge leap in touch technology. The ability to move the screen as a whole with a simple gesture or flip through photos or pages was a whole new aspect of touch technology.

With technology moving in this direction, the mouse will eventually be obsolete. Now I don’t think this will be happening tomorrow or anything, but ultimately it will happen. The reason why it won’t be disappearing right away is because of the traditional computer programs that we currently use all of the time. With spreadsheets, word processors, and many other programs, people just prefer the ease of a mouse.

Now that phones have gone to touchscreens, laptops are sure to follow. One thing that they will have to figure out is a surface that will stay grime-free. Computers already attract dust and now we’re going to add in fingerprints. All of these smudges and grime affect the visibility and sensitivity of the device. They will definitely need to find another type of screen than could prevent these problems.

Pinpoint accuracy is another issue that developers will have to figure out. No one will be able to successfully edit their pictures on their computer with their finger. Sure your finger works fine for clicking, moving around, and lots of other things, but it doesn’t work too well with tiny details. Having a touchpad pen could solve part of this problem, but they need to find a surface that isn’t easily scratched first.

It will be interesting to watch how touchscreens become more common in laptops. Before everything is converted to touch though, there are definitely some issues that they need to work out.

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A Dual Touchscreen Netbook from DNB

So I know I’ve been writing quite a bit about a variety of different things that were at the Consumer Electronics Show, but there were so many amazing things that were showcased there that I can’t help but want to share all the awesome new advances in technology that we are going to see here in 2010.

In the international section at the CES, you could view the DNB “Dual Net-book.” This netbook features two screens. One screen obviously serves as your normal laptop viewing screen, but the second screen doubles as a keyboard and an extra screen. This extra screen can still perform all the necessary function of a keyboard, but it can also convert to a screen to view documents, pictures, etc. Both the top and bottom screens are touchscreens.

Other than this, not a whole lot is know about these dual screened netbooks, but I’m sure we’ll learn about them soon enough. The device is expected to ship around the end of the year, and it is expected to be priced around $800.

It will be exciting to get all the details on this new netbook development and see if it really takes off.

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