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"  The touchscreen, that humble interface of ATMs and tourist information kiosks, is on the verge of greatness. A new technology called multitouch, which responds to multiple inputs by multiple fingers\u2014even multiple users\u2014at the same time, could transform the way we interact with computers. Why? Because simultaneous finger inputs allow more complex gestures than simple pointing and clicking, such as rotating or resizing a photo by grabbing two corners and pulling or navigating a map by pulling and twisting the image with your fingers. The technology has been in development for decades: Bill Buxton, now a principal researcher at Microsoft, demonstrated a multitouch system back in 1984 while working at the University of Toronto. &amp;quot;Any of the pointing devices that people have used to date are controlling a single point on a screen, like a mouse,&amp;quot; Buxton said when we reached him recently. &amp;quot;With multitouch, not only can you control more than one point, you can control more than one thing. I&amp;#039;ve been arguing for the importance of this technology for years. I have two hands and I have four fingers and a thumb on each hand, and I&amp;#039;d like to be able to use them.&amp;quot; Despite its obvious potential, this interface has only recently started to generate buzz. Last year, New York University researcher Jefferson Han wowed the audience at the Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) conference in California with his demo of a large multitouch display: Han has spun his research into a startup company called Perceptive Pixel, which creates large-scale, purpose-built multitouch screens for military and industrial clients. Right now, Perceptive Pixel creates two main types of multitouch machines, a drafting-table display and a huge wall-mounted interactive screen. &amp;quot;Multitouch gets most exciting when it&amp;#039;s big,&amp;quot; says Han. &amp;quot;Up until now, computers have been all about you and the machine, but multitouch is all about multiple people collaborating.&amp;quot; By far, the biggest news yet in multitouch was the announcement of Apple&amp;#039;s iPhone in January, which, among other innovations, features a full-face multitouch screen. Plus, Buxton&amp;#039;s fellow researchers at Microsoft have been experimenting with a system called Play-Anywhere, which uses cameras and a front-projection display that can interact with both people and physical objects. So is multitouch going to kill off the traditional computer mouse? Not really, says Buxton. &amp;quot;Look in your toolbox; you have hammers and screwdrivers. Both are designed to push long, pointy pieces of metal into wood, and both are useful in different ways. Multitouch is just one more tool in our bag of tricks.&amp;quot; The big question now is how this sensitive and highly sophisticated touchscreen technology will stand up to the daily abuses and expectations that the iPhone will be subjected to. So far, the phone was dazzling when it was demonstrated at MacWorld, but no one outside of Apple has had much of a chance to use it for more than a few minutes yet. When it comes to products such as phones, you generally have to live with them for a while to form an opinion, but Apple&amp;#039;s no stranger to touch-sensitive interfaces. Millions of iPods reside in consumers&amp;#039; bags and pockets, and what differentiates those devices from the iPod wannabes is Apple&amp;#039;s famous scroll-wheel\u2014an interface that is, you guessed it, touch sensitive. \u2014Glenn Derene PREVIOUS BUZZWORDS: Smartphone Modem, Joost IPTV   "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/a1385/4212910/>