multi-touch

Right around the corner is a revolutionary way to interact with computers, destine to push the mouse into the recesses of antiquated computer hardware alongside the floppy disk and magnetic tape drive. Click here to watch a demonstration of the technology. Be sure to check out the various links available at the bottom of that same page. Jefferson Y. Han, a research scientist for New York University’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, is one of the main developers of an interface-free touch-driven computer screen. The screen is based on “multi-touch sensing,” which is similar to existing touch-screen interfaces but able to recognize multiple points of contact.

Apple’s current iPhone, iPod and laptop computers are already making use of the technology on a small but significant scale. For example you can scale and rotate photos by pinching and stretching two fingers. You can move forward and back in Safari with a combination of fingers, swiped in a particular direction.

A plugin for Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari called, PicLens allows you to effortlessly browse hundreds of images, zooming in and out, while pushing a panel of images forward and back with the mouse, and mouse wheel, simultaneously. It’s a clear step in a multi-touch direction, and widely available now.

bookmark

Have you ever sat down to your laptop, or a friends computer, or a computer at your local library and wanted to access a bookmark or favorite site from your home computer? Add this extension to Mozilla Firefox and you can sync your bookmarks with your other computers. You can even access your bookmarks from any computer connected to the internet, by visiting, um... what was that web address? Oh yeah, my.foxmarks.com. Pretty cool, hey.