New Multitouch Notebook, Mozilla Labs, GSoC and fun

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Its week two weeks since I finally bought myself a Acer Aspire 5738 pzg multitouch (actually dual-touch) notebook.

Its a welcome change, since for the past two years our multitouch experiments required a lot of background effort due to our utter dependence on our custom built MT screen. The capacitive screen is good, its responsive and precise. They've a Python apploader called Acer Touch Portal which runs a couple of cool Microsoft Surface apps (Globe, Collage, Blackboard etc.). Overall UI of the app is not so impressive though. Form-factor wise its just a laptop, so multitouch is not going to add much of functionality to the device, apart from merely being a show-off feature :) The app looks like more of an Acer's attempt to show Multitouch proof of concept! Looking at the Multitouch hullabaloo everywhere, i didn't expect that to happen atleast.
For DIY and multitouch community its a good tool for quick development and testing of apps.
I used Mozilla Firefox and IE7 which natively ships with Windows 7- the touch based webbrowsing experience was shoddy, just like i imagined when i tried HP TouchSmart PC hands-on. Both these miss the intuitive experience. I'll rate the multitouch functionality:7/10 and usability 4/10



iPad's Safari browser is a neat POC which I'll pick up cues for my Google Summer of Code- Mozilla Labs 2010 project from.
- Simple interface
- Lesser Buttons overhead
- Neat Design and immersive ux that blends right into the user's subcon
- Meant for multitouching

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