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At the All Things Digital conference today, Microsoft demonstrated some Windows 7 features. Supposedly the main feature of Windows 7 will be multi-touch capabilities, as already seen in the Microsoft Surface demos. While multi-touch might be useful for a table interface, I fail to see how it will ever be useful in a Windows operating system.

First, here is the video of the short demonstration:

Video: Multi-Touch in Windows 7

Now, first of all, only tablet laptops and touch-screen LCD’s will be able to make use of multi-touch. However, almost no one has a tablet, and only stores have touch screen LCD’s for customer interaction. There will be a very small amount of consumers who will be able to even use multi-touch.

Second, what’s the point? How often do people really want to drag a couple photos around the screen and rotate them? Are you really going to use a multi-touch piano? You might for ten minutes just to play with the technology, but that’s it. Most people aren’t going to use it to draw in paint. And again, how often do you use Google Maps?

Multi-touch might be useful for graphic artists, but most already have external touch pads for the job. For consumers, I just don’t see the application of multi-touch in everyday computing. For companies who use touch screen displays in the workplace, they already have the technology for it.

I see no purpose for multi-touch. It’s cool to use it for some demonstrations, but that’s it. Most people won’t even have the hardware for it, yet alone the use for it. And with Gizmodo saying multi-touch is the biggest feature of Windows 7, I’m starting to doubt whether this version of Windows will live up to the hype.

This is a demo from TechCrunch of Microsoft’s new TouchWall. The TouchWall is like Microsoft’s Surface table, except it’s vertical and resembles a Smart Board. The TouchWall is capable of multi-touch and uses a rear mounted projector to display the image, which is more convenient than a Smart Board. There are three infrared lasers on the front of the board that pick up finger “clicks”. While the technology itself doesn’t seem like anything extraordinary, the software sure is unique and looks very intuitive and useful. Check out TechCrunch’s video below.

Now, you can buy a Chinese made BMW for $5,000! Simple as that? No. As China continues to expand its market, selling things like appliances, shoes, and shirts, Chinese cars are also beginning to appear in the world market. Chinese cars aren’t much better than fake iPods and cell phones that are also made in China. Chinese brands like Chery Automobile, BYD, and Great Wall Motor Company (GWM) are copying major car manufacturers like Toyota, BMW, and General Motors (GM). Chinese engineers can now reverse-engineer established car manufacturers’ cars so well that an average consumer couldn’t really even tell the difference between a knock-off Chinese car, and its original counterpart.

Knock-off Chinese cars are built below the world standard. They fail crash tests miserably; many Chinese cars get a score of one star. Mechanically, they don’t last very long because they are “reverse-engineered;” they are not designed the same way that the engineers of the original non-knock-off cars designed their cars. It is also hard to find specific parts for Chinese automobiles since they are not widely used in the USA yet. For the price of a summer job’s pay, who wouldn’t want drive around in a brand new Chinese car with leather seats made to look like a BMW? I know I wouldn’t.

The “Smart Car” brand is appearing in the USA as the ultimate city car. Smart Car is owned by Daimler-Benz, and production takes place in France. There is mainly one model available in the USA at this moment – the “Fortwo,” which is available in its most basic form as “Pure,” and, in more user-friendly forms, as a “Passion Coupe” or “Passion Cabriolet”. It features a three cylinder, 1.0 liter engine, which produces 71 horsepower. Top speed on the Smart Car is 90mph, and its 0-60mph time is 12.8 seconds. The horsepower rating may not seem like much, but the car weighs just 1808lbs., and it gets 33mpg in the city, and 44mpg on the highway – and let’s not forget that it is not a hybrid. Safety features include front and side airbags, and a collapsible steering column. If there is an impact, the car is engineered to “crush” itself until the impact reaches the passenger compartment. The doors are reinforced for side impacts. Pricing for the Fortwo starts at $11,590 for the most basic “Pure” version, and it goes all the way up to $16,590 for the “Passion Cabriolet.” For that money, it’s hard to not want to buy a car that’s also exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and is the only car in the museum still in production and on sale today.

image from Elijah on Flickr – source

Ever since HD-DVD lost the format war a few months ago, Blu-ray prices have been on the rise. Right now isn’t a good time to buy a new Blu-ray player, and prices won’t be dropping any time soon. When it was announced that Blu-ray was the winner of the high def format war, Blu-ray prices immediately started to climb.

Blu-ray prices won’t be going down anytime soon because now there is no competing high definition format. Blu-ray has no competition, which also means the Blu-ray distributing companies have no reason to drop their prices. And prices will probably continue to rise.

There is a sort of monopoly in the high def media market right now. The prices will most likely continue to stay high or rise in the following year. Right now isn’t a great time to buy a new home media system with Blu-ray. If you want to go high def right now, I recommend a Playstation 3 as your Blu-ray player. It seems to be the best choice regarding value for price right now. The dedicated Blu-ray players do show higher quality, but the price makes them not worth your money.

As more companies will be licensing Blu-ray technology and creating Blu-ray players, the prices will start going down. But that won’t happen for another year, as new versions of Blu-ray are currently being introduced. So if you are looking for a Blu-ray player right now, either get a Playstation 3 or wait it out. If you have the money you can get a dedicated Blu-ray player, but Blu-ray is being revised right now with new versions. I myself will be waiting at least a year to get a Blu-ray player.

Last month OCZ Technology announced that the NIA, or Neural Impulse Actuator, is in mass production and will be shipping imminently. Today the NIA has been spotted on Play.com stating that it is due for release on April 21, 2008 – a week from now. You can get your own for just £99.99, or $197 USD.

The OCZ NIA is a video game controller that is controller by your brain. You put on the special headband and think about what you want to do in the game. I am not sure how well this will work, but in theory if it works perfectly, reaction times could be cut by more than half, which would give some players an advantage. All you need to do is move the mouse, and use your mind to control the movement and other actions.

Here is a short video of the NIA in action:

Main photo from Legit Reviews

The IBM Hydro-Cluster Supercomputer is a new project from IBM to make a zero-emissions data center that uses on-chip water cooling.

Famed iPhone hacker Charlie Miller hacked a MacBook Air in just two minutes at this year’s PWN 2 OWN competition. Miller visited a website which contained his exploit code, which then allowed him to seize control of the computer. Contestants could only use software that came pre-installed on the operating system, which means he could have only used Safari for the exploit. Well done Mr. Miller, well done. Maybe now people will finally realize that Mac OS X isn’t virus-free like Apple claims.

Charlie will get a $10,000 reward as well as keep the Macbook Air.

I came across this awesome video on YouTube today. Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories shows how you can make your very own bristlebot. I can’t wait to try this out as soon as I find a spare motor.

“The BristleBot is a simple and tiny robot with an agenda. The ingredients? One toothbrush, a battery, and a pager motor. The result? Serious fun.“

“The BristleBot is our take on the popular vibrobot, a simple category of robot that is controlled by a single vibrating (eccentric) motor.“

Here is the video:

Check out this video for a quick review.