#10 Tech Toy - Can Touch This!

HP Touch Smart

Tech Toy #10 - Can Touch This - The HP Touch Smart 

This year was the beginning of the wave of new interfaces on devices. Many top lists put the iPodTouch on top this year. And of course the iPhone has caused a rush of me-too touch screen look-a-likes in the cell phone space. And the Microsoft Surface Table - the ultimate gather around touch screen device that was available only to Hotels, Casinos and Cell phone stores (ATT) - finally became available to the rest of the development world.

In my Top 10 Technology trends at the FIATECH meeting this year - I predicted this rush of touch/haptic - and other alternate interfaces. No doubt that this was right on, but there's more....

Expect to see Apple at MacWorld announce a touch screen interface for their OS in January. Microsoft's Windows 7 will include a Touch interface. And I expect more cell phones and many other devices to have a touch interface (Ashton/Nikon cameras, Photoframes, Kiosks, etc.)

The HP Touch Smart is one of the more pratical desktop devices that have embraced the "touch-mania" craze.

The real challenge in this space is defining Touch gestures that are natural and take advantage of the technology. You'll hear more from me on this in 2009.