By Priya Ganapati
From: Wired.Com
Touchscreen displays are going to get a big boost from Windows 7’s built-in support for multitouch tech — but there’s a hitch: Flicking, scrolling and opening programs can be cumbersome when stubby fingers meet Windows’ tiny icons and menu items.
“PCs with touchscreens look cool, but what do you with them?” says Jennifer Colegrove, a director at Display Search. “When it comes to the iPhone there are 50,000 applications that use touch — but what do you do an PC with touch?”
To help answer that question, some companies are building touchscreen-centric “skins” for Windows aimed at making tactile navigation more pleasant. Two big PC companies, HP and Lenovo, as well as a startup called BumpTop, have built touch-oriented user interfaces that will run on top of Windows. Read more…
wired
wired
From:Wired.Com
By Ryan Singel
Skype on the iPhone is now OK by AT&T, the company said in letters to Apple and the FCC.
AT&T’s change of heart comes just after the FCC controversially announced that it was planning to extend internet openness rules to mobile networks. The wireless carriers are fighting back, arguing that wireless networks are not robust enough to operate without intense network management.
AT&T made no mention of the FCC in its announcement, crediting the change instead to a routine examination of its policies.
“IPhone is an innovative device that dramatically changed the game in wireless when it was introduced just two years ago,” said Ralph de la Vega, AT&T’s president of Mobility & Consumer Markets. “Today’s decision was made after evaluating our customers’ expectations and use of the device compared to dozens of others we offer.”
Now the only thing standing between iPhone users and VoIP applications is Apple and its inscrutable app-approval process. Read more…
wired
wired
Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader is going on sale in more than 100 countries around the world, including the UK.
The reader has been confined to the US since its launch in November 2007; Amazon expects to have sold a million of the devices by the end of the year.
The global version will run on the 3G network, although Amazon has not specified the networks that will provide connectivity for the devices.
The Kindle store will offer over 200,000 English language titles.
Hundreds of publishers are signed up including Penguin, Faber and Faber, and HarperCollins.
It will also carry more than 85 US and international newspapers and magazines.
Internet, Technology, netbooks, wired
netbooks, Technology, wired
