Awesome Techs

Multi-touch or multitouch functionality has been attracting consumer attraction, thanks to iPhone and iPod Touch, two-finger-scroll in Apple MacBook with TrackPad, and Windows 7, which has built-in multi-touch mapping application, photo viewing program, and gesture support in Internet Explorer 8. Multi-touch is essentially a set of interaction techniques which allow computerusers to interact and control graphical applications with fingers.

However, for marketing reason, Synaptics official standard drivers for most Synaptics TouchPads does not support multi-touch Synaptics Gestures. Synaptics’ drivers lock gesture features on all non-supported OEM notebooks and laptop PCs, except for certain gadgets such as ASUS EEE PC. So multi-touch is disabled even though touchpad hardware does support them.

But now if you want to experiance this awesome multi touch features, well there is good news. One guy has developed a modded driver for synaptic which will enable the multi touch functionality in a normal PC with windows.

The Synaptics TouchPad driver should support all Windows operating system such as Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. However, do note that the digital signatures of the modded drivers have been broken, and the drivers are no longer signed. Thus, there may be issue when use in 64bit operating system which enforces strict driver signing requirements.

Installation:

1. Uninstall all current Synaptics drivers from Control Panel’s Add and Remove Programs or Programs and Features.
2. Restart the computer.
3. Install the modded driver by running the setup.exe inside the ZIP archive.
4. Windows should prompt a warning about unsigned driver. Continue to install the driver anyway.
5. Restart the computer after installation is completed and Synaptics TouchPad driver is updated.
6. In Device Manager’s Mouse and Other Pointing Devices” section, Synaptics PS/2 Port Touchpad should have driver version of 10.2.4.

Now just play around a little bit and you will know how awesome this features are.

Also there is a two finger scrolling application which is a project hosted in google code. So this application is all you need if you just need the 2 finger scrolling functionality in windows.

This application can be found here:

Download: http://code.google.com/p/two-finger-scroll/downloads/list

The moded drivers from synaptic can be found here:

Download synaptics_v10.2.4.0_allOS_modded_b2.zip or touchpad_synaptics_v10.2.4_vistax32x64_xpx32x64_modded_build2.zip

Or you can just download all the required files from here:

Mirrors:

1. Synaptics Multi touch mode (all) – Selfhosted
2. Synaptics Multi touch mode (all) – Rapidshare – Recommended

Credits: MyDigitalLife

IMPORTANT: Do not upgrade the Synaptics TouchPad driver if you love these touch features, as Sypnatics locks and disable the advanced touch features from driver v11.0.0.0 onwards.

Today google released an update to their Nexus One, which will make it a multi touch device. this multi Touch first brough to the maket by Apple and they hold a patent for the same.

Mashable posted a blog entry saying about the issue,

Nobody’s sure whether or not the patent would actually hold up, or whether Apple would dare take anyone to task for using it. Other phones — including the Palm Pre — have gone ahead and taken the risk, and they haven’t experienced cripplingly adverse legal consequences yet.

There are some other features also in the new software update, which include more reliable 3G connectivity, and several updates to Google map.

Google Nexux One Blog post says,

Starting today, Nexus One users will begin to receive an over-the-air software update on their phones. This update provides some great new features, and fixes a few problems that some users might have experienced, including:

Google Goggles: this mobile application will now be available directly on your device by launching it from your All Apps menu. Just use your Nexus One camera to start searching the web

Google Maps: the Maps application with be updated to a new version, Google Maps 3.4, which will include:

• Starred items synchronized with maps.google.com – access your favorite places from your phone or computer
• Search suggestions from your personal maps.google.com history – makes it easy to search for places you’ve searched for before
• Night mode in Google Maps Navigation – automatically changes your screen at night for easier viewing and driving

Pinch-to-zoom functionality: devices will now include a new pinch-to-zoom mechanism in the phone’s Browser, Gallery and Maps applications

3G connectivity: we will provide a general fix to help improve 3G connectivity on some Nexus One phones

In order to access the update, you will receive a message on your phone’s notification bar. Just download the update, wait for it to install, and you should be all set. This update will be rolled out gradually to phones – and most users might not receive the notification until the end of the week. We hope you enjoy these new features and look forward to your feedback.