Windows 7 to boast Multitouch screen technology

May 28, 2008

Speaking at the opening night of Wall Street Journal’s “D: All Things Digital” conference in Southern California yesterday, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates and fellow exec and long time business partner Steve Ballmer showed of some early features of the next Windows operating system.

Multitouch is apparently what we’ll be getting us all excited and fidgety. Multitouch is a pioneering new touchscreen technology that means the operating system can read and respond to multiple inputs at the same time. The prime example Microsoft uses in this instance, as has been done several times in demos of its Windows Table Top concept, is in dragging photos to enlarge them.

It’s really incredible stuff, and would certainly have been a lot more so if rival Apple wasn’t already selling a handheld device that does the same thing.

Here’s a video of it in action:

Of course, the comparisons to Apple’s iPhone technology are pretty trite. Handheld devices are a different kettle of fish to home computing. It is interesting that the video shows off the Multitouch system on a laptop though; laptops design is certainly going to affected by an enhanced touchscreen tech, but there are desktop computers to consider as well.

At the moment, desktop layouts don’t exactly make for an easy conversion to using touchscreen features, by virtue of simply being at the wrong angle or too far away from where you’re sitting. If Windows 7’s Multitouch system does win widespread appeal it’ll be extremely interesting to see how the role of home computing evolves and what it will mean for other PC functions like gaming.

Interviewer also brought up the question of mixed public reception to Windows Vista. Although the pair showed restraint on the topic, they did acknowledge that with hindsight some things could have been done differently.

Clearly that’s something that they’ll hope to rectify in Vista’s successor, whatever it might be called. We’ll reserve judgement over whether Microsoft actually has the capacity to take any of its Vista criticisms on board until the system gets considerably nearer a release, which is currently expected around the end of 2009, but that is obviously dependant on a great number of other factors.

via NYTimes