Synaptics, purveyor of fine touchpads, recently demonstrated its upcoming “ClickPad,” which is basically a button-less multitouch trackpad that’s “ideal for space constrained netbooks where real estate is at a premium in the palmrest.”
While you can currently tap on just about any Synaptics touchpad to serve as a left-button press, this idea will apparently be used a lot more often with future ClickPad computers.
And though it’s not quite clear how right-clicking will be handled, a page on Synaptics’ web site shows a few common gestures that work on the company’s multitouch pads, such as: two-finger scrolling, two-finger rotate, two-finger pinch zoom, three-finger flick, three-finger down, linear scrolling, something called ChiralScroll, and a side-to-side flick called Momentum. More details and photos here.
The gestures are currently used in already-available touchpads from Synaptics, but the button-less ClickPad won’t be available to OEMs until the third quarter of this year, which means we likely won’t see ClickPad computers until later in the year or early next year. And that’s assuming people are ready to give up their trusty, clicky left and right trackpad buttons.
Press Release [via Wired]
They can have my trackpad buttons when they pry them from my cold dead fingers!
Cool, Now if windows machine manufacturers would just make track pads fun to use. That would make every thing good again.
havent seen that before . . . . . . .
I’m a PC guy…but if you haven’t lived the GLORY of two-finger scrolling that is the new glass trackpad of Macbook…you are being deprived. I promise you…once you spend time surfing the web with a trackpad that you can scroll anywhere with two fingers, you will wonder wtf Windows has been holding back for. Having to grab your curser and grab the dang scroll bar is a complete waste of time and carpel tunnel.
Oh, and right-click is easy, you just tap the screen with two fingers, the right-click menu pops up. Its a no-brainer once you spend a few hours on it, I’m pissed I can’t find it on a PC yet, apparently the Asus and Dell mini’s have it, but some driver issues. Supposedly the T400s from Lenovo has one but I’ve yet to confirm its functionality (two finger scroll is a must have).