Synaptics, which makes a significant percentage of the world’s touchscreens and even more of its laptop touchpads, has announced Fuse, a platform and concept phone that aims to help figure out what next-generation smartphones might look and feel like.

It’s a joint venture with chipmaker Texas Instruments, interface designers TheAlloy and TAT, and haptic-feedback technology provider Immersion.  And it combines multiple interesting touches, both familiar (multi-touch) and new (my favorite: You can swipe your finger around on the back of the phone to control the interface).

PCMag.com’s Sascha Segan did a nice video explainer on the phone’s features, which I’ll borrow right here (here’s his story).

I haven’t laid eyes or hands on the Fuse yet, and every smartphone on the market today–good or bad–proves that pleasing experiences are about 90 percent integration and execution and only ten percent cool technology. But I’m looking forward to seeing it in person, and seeing the ideas it contains turn into features in shipping phones. Synaptics says it’ll demo its concept version at next month’s Consumer Electronics Show; look for phones based on it to show up starting in mid-2010.

Jak powszechnie wiadomo często pisząc coś przypadkiem klikniemy gdzieś przez oparcie ręki o touchpada. Na szczęście przed pisaniem kilometrowych wypocin można touchpad wyłączyć dzięki synclient. Jest to program który manipuluje ustawieniami synaptics. Jednak aby miał on dostęp do tych ustawień w sekcji InputDevice dla touchpada w xorg.conf należy dopisać:

Option      ”SHMConfig”   “on”

Ewentualnie jeśli korzystamy z HAL’a do ustawienia touchpada – plik /etc/hal/fdi/policy/11-x11-synaptics.fdi i linijka:

<merge key=”input.x11_options.SHMConfig” type=”string”>on</merge>

synclient opcja=wartość

synclient TouchpadOff=1

#!/bin/bash

state=`synclient -l | grep TouchpadOff | awk ‘{printf $3}’`

if [ $state = 1 ]; then

synclient TouchpadOff=O

elif [ $state = 0 ]; then

synclient TouchpadOff=1

fi

We may want to disable Macbook Pro (or any other Laptop) Touchpad, such cases are:
(i) We have connected a USB mouse, so we do not want to use touchpad for now.
(ii) While typing, there is no use of touchpad, if touchpad is too sensitive, the cursor keeps on jumping due to slight touch of palm or finger.

I have written a script to disable/enable touchpad (which is using synaptics driver).

#!/bin/bash

## Disable touchpad if USB Mouse is attached

SYNAPTICS=`which synclient`

if [[ "$SYNAPTICS" == "" ]]
then
    echo "$0: please install synaptics touchpad driver."
    echo "Also make sure that 'Option         \"SHMConfig\" \"on\"'"
    echo " is added in Touchpad device Section in /etc/X11/xorg.conf"
    exit
fi

USB_mouse_present=`grep -ic "usb.*mouse" /proc/bus/input/devices`
# if no USB Mouse; enable touchpad
if [ $USB_mouse_present -eq 0 ]
then
    $SYNAPTICS TouchpadOff=0
else
    $SYNAPTICS TouchpadOff=1
fi 

# if any parameter [on|off] is given, override previous command
if [ $# -ge 1 ]
then
    if [ "$1" = "on" ]
    then
        $SYNAPTICS TouchpadOff=0
    else
        $SYNAPTICS TouchpadOff=1
    fi
fi

exit 0

Sample Run:
Turn on touchpad

$ ./touchpad.sh on

Turn off touchpad

$ ./touchpad.sh off

If we have plugged USB mouse, then just give following command

$ ./touchpad.sh

On removing USB mouse, give following, the touchpad will be enabled automatically.

$ ./touchpad.sh


PS: The configuration for synaptics driver can be referred from here or here.

Akhirnya selesai juga instalasi Windows 7 pada Aspire One AOA150. Proses instalasi yang lumayan rumit karena tidak tersedianya DVD-ROM pada netbook ini. Meskipun sebagian besar driver sudah disertakan dalam Windows 7, namun ada beberapa driver dan software yang dibutuhkan belum didukung penuh seperti touchpad dan modem internal. Namun itu tidak akan menjadi masalah kalau mau mencari dan tentunya ada koneksi internet .

Ingin mencobanya juga pada Aspire One Anda? Mari ikuti jejak saya ;p.

Kebutuhan:
- USB Flash Drive 4GB
- DVD atau file ISO Windows 7
- Driver Aspire One (di bawah)

Langkah-langkah:
1. Download driver yang akan digunakan.
2. Buat bootable USB yang berisikan file instalasi Windows 7.
3. Install Windows 7
4. Install Driver & Software Acer yang telah di download sebelumnya.

Driver dan Software yang dibutuhkan:
- Touchpad Synaptic
- Webcam Liteon
- JMicron Card Reader
- Qualcomm 3G Modem & Acer 3G Connection Manager
- Acer Launch Manager

Selamat mencoba

Hesitant is not a word often used to describe Google. But industry insiders say the Internet giant has been holding back its might in at least one area–mobile–due to its close relationship with fellow tech titan, Apple.

Many in the wireless industry believe Google’s friendship with Apple – until Monday, Google Chief Eric Schmidt sat on Apple’s board – is the main reason the company has yet to implement multi-touch gesture support into its mobile operating system, Android. Adding multi-touch would allow people to navigate Android handsets using finger swoops, pinches and flicks instead of more precise single finger taps and swipes. Due to its ease of use, efficiency and fun factor, multi-touch support is one of the most requested features among Android users.

Unfortunately for Google, Apple essentially owns multi-touch. The technology is based on intellectual property from a company called FingerWorks that Apple acquired in 2005. [...]

One Android partner suggests that Google has been watching smart phone maker Palm for guidance. Palm butted heads with Apple several times during the development of its new operating system, WebOS, and flagship handset, the Pre. Palm made the Pre multi-touch capable from the beginning–a move that led Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook to threaten legal action during a call with analysts in January. Palm also devised a way to sync the Pre with Apple’s iTunes software and updated the software last month when Apple blocked it.

“Palm has been breaking some ground,” says the Android partner. “Google is waiting to see if Apple is going to protect their IP.”

via Android Likely Better Without Apple – Forbes.com

An Intel executive last week suggested it was abnormal to interact with a laptop using input devices like touchpads, but Synaptics is out to debunk that notion by making touchpads more user-friendly.

The company is eliminating the click buttons to increase the size of touchpads, and is also looking to add new touchpad gestures to simplify routine PC tasks. Users will be able to design their own touchpad functions using custom gestures, Vena said.

For example, drawing A on a touchpad could take users directly to Amazon’s Web site, said Mark Vena, vice president of Synaptics’ PC business unit. The technology is just one way to boost the usability of touchpads and could be applied to multiple applications.

“The whole notion of creating custom gestures and doing that in an intuitive way is something we are spending a lot of time on,” Vena said. A particular announcement date for the feature couldn’t be provided by the company.

Bringing quicker shortcuts to launch applications through touchpads could bring the usability that tablet PCs couldn’t achieve, said David Daoud, a research manager at IDC.

“The tablet PC hasn’t taken off as much as many wanted it to,” Daoud said. Touch screens could ultimately take off, but versatile touchpads could fill the role until users get more comfortable interacting with laptop screens.

There is also growing interest in making better use of touchpads for functionality like image manipulation, Daoud said. Gesture technology already offered on Synaptics touchpads includes using one or multiple fingers to jump between pages in an e-book, rotate images or zoom into documents.

Synaptics is also looking to bring haptics to touchpads, in which a vibrating touchpad can notify users of certain events. For example, if a user receives an e-mail during a meeting, a buzzing sensation in the touchpad can notify the user of the event, Vena said. That could be helpful if a user doesn’t want a laptop chiming during a meeting.

“There’s all kinds of things in the haptics area that could be potentially interesting to us,” Vena said.

Haptics are already being used in devices like cell phones and GPS devices. Additionally, the technology is being researched for use in mice and keyboards. Mobile-phone makers like Nokia, Samsung and Research In Motion use haptic technology to provide feedback to users on cell phones.

Synaptics is also looking at tiny touch-based LCD screens to replace touchpads, but that has limited usability and versatility, Vena said. Many companies and PC makers have already talked about similar concepts. For example, Microsoft’s SideShow concept places a tiny LCD on a laptop’s surface so users can read e-mail messages or check a flight reservation without switching on a computer.

“The problem with that is cost,” Vena said. PC makers look at the overheads when building laptops, and touchpads aren’t expensive, costing anywhere between US$3 and $4. “When you start talking about replacing your touchpad with an LCD, you are then talking about $40 or $50,” Vena said.

A graphical user interface (GUI) and applications also need to be built around the LCD-based touchpad to make it usable, which could require a lot of work, Vena said. “I don’t see that in the short term. I see the large touch-screen stuff happening a lot quicker.”

Synaptics’ immediate focus, though, is eliminating touchpad buttons with its Clickpad technology, functionality that Apple offers in some MacBook laptops today. The technology builds click functions inside the touchpad surface.

“It allows you to put a larger touchpad in a smaller space,” Vena said. A touchpad based on Clickpad technology will be incorporated in laptops and netbooks starting by the end of the year, he said.

Synaptics, a maker of human interface solutions, recently unveiled their latest capacitive multi-touchscreen, the ClearPad 3000. Utilizing 48 sensing channels, the ClearPad 3000 is capable of recognizing and tracking up to 10 fingers at once. With the ability to track all ten fingers, the ClearPad 3000 allows for a true multi-touch experience. The possibilities are only limited by the imagination. In the Synaptics demo below, you’ll see a ‘3-finger crumple’, multitouch unlock, and a multi-touch piano keyboard.

Continue reading to see a video demonstration of ClearPad in action.

Touchscreen technology has touched all spectrums of our gadget life. Optimizing the technical genius Synaptics has come up with its latest wonder, the Synaptics ClearPad 3000 Touchscreen. With high receptiveness the touchscreen can detect 10 fingers simultaneously due to the 48 reception channels operating for it. Well suited for mobile phones and gaming tasks, the technology is believed to cover an area up to 8” touchscreen giving the same output.
SOURCE: VAROLOGIC BLOG

Synaptics разработва тъчскрийн сензор, който може да разпознава 10 докосвания с пръсти едновременно.  ClearPad 3000 ще има способността да разпознава също и разнообразни “мулти-тъч” жестове, включително ротации и тн.

Той ще се предлага в размери до 8 инча и  създаден за употреба при “следващото поколение 3D графични потребителски интерфейси”. От Synaptics казаха, че тайната на сензора се крие в иновативна технология, която позволява ползването на 48 “сензорни канала”.

0.300мм “дебелия” сензор ще бъде разположен под дисплея на съответното устройство и може да се комбинира с различни технологии, включително и OLED.

Въпреки всичко обаче, малко е трудно човек да си представи, как точно ще използва и 10-те си пръста на 8-инчов тъчскрийн…

Очаква се производството на ClearPad 3000 да започне през ноември.

Synaptics (s SYNA), maker of the touchscreens on several phones, including the Google (s goog) phone from T-Mobile and the LG Samsung Instinct, has benefited as touch has been added to all kinds of devices — its seen a boost to both its profits and its number of customers. The company today introduced a new touchscreen that allows for 8-inch screen sizes and 10-finger gestures, as well as a low-end product that allows for basic one- and two-finger gestures. The more advanced product is likely for netbooks or phones, and could even be used as more of a touchpad rather than a touchscreen. Synaptics says it could be used for gaming or navigating 3D interfaces. These high-end touchscreens will be available to manufacturers in November, so don’t expect to see them in devices for another year or so.

The low-end touchscreen, meanwhile, will allow folks who don’t want to buy a high-end phone the fun of single-finger gestures such as tap, double tap, tap and slide, pinch, press and flick. The lower-end product will fit screens up to 4.3 inches. And if touch can make web site navigation on feature phones easier, it will be a boon to carriers trying to push more data plans on its customers.

Even in the era of the iPhone, devices with touchscreen interfaces aren’t anywhere near pervasive–and some of the gadgets that do have touchscreens aren’t that great. Synaptics, the company that makes touch-input hardware (including a high percentage of the world’s laptop touchpads) aims to help change that with a couple of new touchscreens it’s introducing for hardware makers to incorporate into their gizmos.

The new touchscreens include the ClearPad 1000, a low-cost capacitive model that only offers single-touch input–but which is priced to compete with resistive touchscreens, which aren’t as precise as capacitive ones. (If you’ve ever used a touch-enabled phone whose screen is more frustrating than effortless, chances are good it was a resistive model).

At the high end of the market, Synaptics is selling the ClearPad 3000, a model that allows for gestures involving as many as ten fingers at once. That’s a lot of fingers-and the 3000 is available in sizes up to a roomy eight inches, which means it may show up in tablet computers of the sort that don’t quite exist yet but which lots of people are talking about these days. Synaptics already offers a midrange touchscreen (now called the ClearPad 2000), which offers two-finger multitouch.

Devices with the new screens may begin to show up later this year. It wasn’t all that long ago that gadget screens made the leap from monochrome to color; it wouldn’t stun me if a very high percentage add touch capability over the next few years.

Jabra have announced two new wireless headset systems aimed more at deskbound workers wanting to cut their phone cords than true mobile users.  The Jabra GO 6400 (shown here) and PRO 9400 use Bluetooth and DECT respectively, and come complete with a base station with an integrated 2.4-inch capacitive touchscreen display.

That display allows for calls to be switched between, volume adjusted and numbers redialed.  Each unit can handle a combination of landline, cellphone and VoIP calls, with the Synaptics-sourced display use to flick between them.  The Jabra GO 6400 has the regular Bluetooth range, while the PRO 9400 range is up to 450 feet.  Each use dual-microphones for noise reduction and have active sound-spike cancellation.

Caller ID is supported, and the headsets dock magnetically to recharge.  The two new wireless systems will be available in the US from September 2009, priced from $199.

Hoy instalé Fedora 11 “leonidas” en mi laptop, una Dell Inspiron 710m (cosecha 2005), y hablaré de la experiencia de la instalación. Desde que compré la laptop e instalé algún Fedora Core (3 o 4, no recuerdo), sólo había realizado actualizaciones.

Esta vez decidí que era hora de una instalación “fresca”. Antes de realizarla, recordé todo el trabajo que tomaba posterior a la instalación: pantalla, red, tarjeta inalámbrica, etc. Así que me preparé psicológicamente para la bajada de drivers, modificación de archivos, etc., que requiere la configuración final. Sin embargo, esto se ha reducido considerablemente a través de los años.

Utilicé el DVD de instalación, el cual se obtiene de la página de descargas de Fedora. Después de las preguntas de idioma y teclado (importante: el teclado usado en México es el “Latinoamericano”, no el “Español”), horario, password para root, procede a preguntar si deseamos instalar o actualizar Linux.

Después de seleccionar instalar, la instalación por defecto reemplaza a las versiones de Linux anteriores. También se encuentran “usar espacio libre” y “usar todo el disco”. Seguido es un repaso de la partición. En una laptop, la partición por defecto funciona bien. Importante: recomiendo verificar que otras particiones (la de Windows, por ejemplo), no sean formateadas en este paso. En este paso también es posible darle una clave al iniciador (boot).

Después de que la instalación formatea las particiones del disco duro, el siguiente paso es escoger los programas preferidos. Desafortunadamente, no se puede seleccionar la distribución de LaTeX en este paso. Ni modo, va para la postinstalación. Sin embargo, aquí termina la configuración de la instalación. Sólo queda esperar una hora o dos a que instale todos los paquetes.

Después de que terminó de instalar los paquetes en el disco y reiniciamos, hay una serie de pasos finales de configuración antes de usar Linux por primera vez: 1) aceptar la licencia de uso (GPL); 2) crear un usuario (no se recomienda usar root para trabajar normalmente); 3) establecer horario y activar NetWork Time Protocol (recomendado sólo si se tiene conexión a internet constante); y 4) activar smolt, que informa a los desarrolladores los resultados de la instalación (opcional).

Ahora sí, tenemos Fedora 11 funcionando. Lo que más me preocupaba era la tarjeta de red inalámbrica. Fedora no contenía los drivers de las Intel PRO/Wireless, y siempre era un trabajo considerable ponerlas a funcionar. Sin embargo, sólo fue suficiente con hacer click derecho en el ícono de red en el panel, luego en “Edit connections”, y activar la red en la ceja “Wireless”. La tarjeta fue reconocida inmediatemente: todos los drivers necesarios están incluídos en Fedora 11.

Una vez funcionando la red, viene la instalación de programas adicionales. Las instrucciones de la página Personal Fedora 11 Installation Guide, de Mauriat Miranda, son muy útiles en este momento. Sigo aquí algunas de sus recomendaciones (del 1 al 3).

1) Sudoers: Es más eficiente, en lugar de cada vez hacer login como root en una consola, registrar nuestro nombre de usuario a la lista de sudoers, de tal forma que correr un comando administrativo es tan sencillo como escribir

$ sudo comando

Para hacer esto, es necesario editar el archivo “/etc/sudoers” y agregar la línea

usuario ALL=(ALL) ALL

al final. Esto se puede hacer con un sólo comando (desde root) de la forma

$ echo 'loginname ALL=(ALL) ALL' >> /etc/sudoers

2) Yum: Los plugins de yum “fastestmirrors” y “presto” hacen más eficiente el trabajo de actualización e instalación de paquetes. Estos se obtienen con las líneas

$ sudo yum install yum-plugin-fastestmirror

$ sudo yum install yum-presto

3) Adobe: Los plugins de flash y acroread se pueden obtener con yum. Primero, es necesario obtener la dirección de los repositorios de Adobe:

$ sudo rpm -ivh http://linuxdownload.adobe.com/adobe-release/adobe-release-i386-1.0-1.noarch.rpm

$ sudo rpm --import /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-adobe-linux

Luego, con yum, instalamos los paquetes.

$ sudo yum install flash-plugin

$ sudo yum install AdobeReader_enu

AdobeReader_enu instala la versión en inglés. Para la versión en español, es necesario instalar AdobeReader_esp.

Las siguientes son mi configuración.

4) Latex: La instalación más fácil de LaTex se obtiene instalando los editores kile (KDE) o texmaker (GNOME), ya que al instalarlos, yum automáticamente instala los paquetes requeridos, que incluyen toda la distribución de tex-live.

$ sudo yum install kile
$ sudo yum install texmaker

5) Windows: La partición de Windows se montará automáticamente, ya que Fedora 11 incluye el driver de NTFS. Así que no hay que hacer nada.

Excepción: Yo tengo en mi laptop Windows hibernado, así que Fedora no lo puede montar. Sin embargo, es posible hacer un montaje de sólo lectura con el siguiente comando:

$ sudo mount -t ntfs-3g -o ro /dev/donde_esté_windows donde_se_quiere_montar

Notamos la opción “-o ro” de sólo lectura (ro=read only).

6) Touchpad: Fedora 11 ya incluye el driver de Synaptics para el touchpad, pero no está activado. Para hacerlo, ir al Menú principal, luego “System Preferences…”, luego “Mouse”, y activarlo en la ceja “Touchpad”.

Esto activará el Touchpad en la pantalla de usuario, pero no en la pantalla de inicio (login). Para hacerlo, hay que seguir las intrucciones de esta página: Cómo activar el clic del touchpad en Fedora 11 Leonidas.

Y ya fin.

The Free Software community is up in the arms and split into two factions on whether Mono is polluting the ecosystem? The discussions are endless and there is no hope that it will ever subside. I have been following ubuntu-devel-discuss and the topic “shameful censoring of mono opposition” has got the attention of nearly everyone on the list. I think save me, everyone has answered to that discussion. Heck! I am still getting mails now.

I find all these discussions to be getting out of control. Check boycottnovell.com and a tons of other sites. Mono supporters and mono haters are busy discussing whose stand is holier.

Threat

Let me be impartial. There is a threat that Microsoft may one day sue the FOSS companies on the use of it’s IP. Is it true? I don’t find Microsoft can do much as the bigger question is that can they sue each and every single user? They should sue Novell since they are leading the project. Will they sue each and every user out there using Mono?

The threats are more of speculations. Probably Ballmer can tell us what he thinks of Mono exactly, but for that he needs to find time from his busy schedule of dancing and throwing chairs.

Reality

Whatever Mono haters say, the reality is that there is no at par substitute for for GNOME applications like F-Spot, Tomboy and GNOME Do. I would be happy if GNOME is made mono free, but what about these three applications? When it comes to media player, I find Banshee much better than Rhythmbox. Amarok is much better but it is for KDE. I am talking about GNOME apps which don’t need KDE libs to be installed.

I don’t use Tomboy and F-Spot, but GNOME Do is really good. It saves a lot of time. The keybinding saves a lot of time. Everything need not be geek-oriented, but should be such that everyone can be use it. This is in accordance with GNOME Human Interface Guidelines

If anyone wants that GNOME should forget Mono we first need to find good substitutes of the above softwares. An alternative for Tomboy is Gnote. I agree it is lighter, but still it has a long way to go. If Gnote really kicks ass one fine day, that is a day for celebration for anti-mono campaigners.

Middle Ground

Time is money. Let us not waste time by just fighting who is correct and who is wrong. Mono lovers find the other camp stupid and vice-versa. Will the flame ever end? Mailing-lists are too busy these days discussing whether Microsoft can kill Linux by just issuing threats! So what can we do next?

Solution #1

Make it easy to remove Mono stack from GNOME. Probably make it dead easy to do so by including it in Synaptics.

Try issuing this command on the terminal

sudo apt-get remove –purge mono-common

and you get

The following packages will be REMOVED
banshee f-spot libart2.0-cil libavahi1.0-cil libboo2.0-cil libflickrnet2.1.5-cil libgconf2.0-cil libglade2.0-cil
libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.2-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil libgnome2.0-cil libgtk2.0-cil libgtkhtml3.16-cil
libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo1.0-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib1.0-cil
libmono-corlib2.0-cil libmono-data-tds1.0-cil libmono-data-tds2.0-cil libmono-security1.0-cil libmono-security2.0-cil
libmono-sharpzip0.84-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil libmono-sqlite2.0-cil libmono-system-data1.0-cil
libmono-system-data2.0-cil libmono-system-web1.0-cil libmono-system-web2.0-cil libmono-system1.0-cil libmono-system2.0-cil
libmono-zeroconf1.0-cil libmono1.0-cil libmono2.0-cil libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libtaglib2.0-cil
mono-common mono-gac mono-jit mono-runtime tomboy

Which is enough to scare the shit out of you. Such a long list! Is the system going to break?

To solve the above problem Mark Packages By Task can be a good place to place Mono. Just Uncheck and Voila!

Mono should also find a place here

Solution #2

Accelerate Gnote development! Gnote is lighter, faster by still behind Tomboy when it comes to features. I personally prefer physical sticky notes at my workplace or at home. I am not here to discuss which one if better, the above is just my persona views and I hope many people agree with me.

I think Tomboy is like a flagbearer of Mono community. Like Linux is for FOSS. Of all my friends who know something about Mono know about Tomboy. Probably it us the other way round – due to Tomboy they came to know that something called mono exists.

Concluding

I have worked on .NET on windows, but prefer Python on Linux. I also think that we can do without mono, but not at this situation when we don’t have better options to Tomboy, F-Spot and GNOME-Do. I always feel that discussing on the cleanliness of mono is required, but it should end somewhere or the other. Why keep it discussing it over ages? Whenever I read a mono v/s anti-mono thread, two thoughts come to my mind which I summarised above.

Gli ultimi MacBook hanno un’interessante caratteristica, la navigazione via Safari (e per ora limitata a questo browser) mediante il rivoluzionario touchpad, che permette un’esplorazione delle pagine indietro ed avanti mediante la passata di tre dita, verso sinistra o verso destra, sul touch.

Dopo aver abilitato lo scroll a due dita, sia orizzontale che verticale, ho cercato in lungo e in largo qualcosa di più spinto, che andasse oltre alle possibilità offerte da un banale mouse esterno (click qua, scorrimento, click la), qualcosa che interagisse col sistema, pur rimanendo lontano dalle mirabolanti caratteristiche implementabili con un wii-remote. Mi sono dunque imbattuto in questa guida di un programmatore IBM che ha deciso di implementare questa caratteristica per i touchpad Synaptic. Se avete un laptop avete un touchpad e se avete un touchpad al 95% avete un touchpad Synaptics.

IMPORTANTE: Seguite questa guida solo se avete un mouse di ricambio, ad esempio un mouse usb, nel caso il vostro touchpad smettesse di funzionare fino al successivo riavvio.

Per abilitare la navigazione nel vostro browser preferito con l’ausilio delle tre dita, potete fare riferimento al sito del programmatore IBM o aprire un terminale ed eseguire i seguenti comandi:

sudo apt-get install tpconfigwget http://search.cpan.org/CPAN/authors/id/C/CT/CTRONDLP/X11-GUITest-0.21.tar.gztar -zxvf X11-GUITest-0.21.tar.gzcd X11-GUITest-0.21/

ed incollate nel file il seguente testo:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w  
# gestureListener.pl listens for pinch and swipe events
use strict;
use Time::HiRes();
use X11::GUITest qw( :ALL );

my @xHist = ();               # x coordinate history
my @yHist = ();               # y coordinate history
my @xHistThree = ();          # x coordinate history (three fingers)

my $lastTime = 0;             # time monitor for TouchPad event reset
my $eventTime = 0;            # ensure enough time has passed between events
my $eventString = "default";  # the event to execute
my $centerTouchPad = 3000;    
my $openSt         = 1000;    # start of open pinch
my $openEn         = 500;     # end of open pinch
my $closeSt        = 1000;    # start of close pinch
my $closeEn        = 1000;    # end of close pinch

my $synCmd = qq{synclient TouchpadOff=0 -m 10};
my $currWind = GetInputFocus();
die "couldn't get input window" unless $currWind;
open(INFILE," $synCmd |") or die "can't read from synclient";

while( my $line  = <INFILE>)
{
 chomp($line);
 my(  $time, $x, $y, $z, $f ) = split " ", $line;
 next if( $time =~ /time/ ); #ignore header lines

 if( $time - $lastTime > 1 )
 { 
 @xHist = ();
 @yHist = ();
 @xHistThree = ();
 }#if time reset

 $lastTime = $time;

 # three finger swipe detection
 if( $f eq "3" )
 {
 @xHist = ();
 @yHist = ();

 push @xHistThree, $x;

 if( @xHistThree > 10 )
 { 
 my @srt = sort @xHistThree;
 my @revSrt = reverse sort @xHistThree;

 if( "@srt" eq "@xHistThree" )
 { 
 # alt + right arrow - forward
 $eventString = "'%({RIG})";
 }elsif( "@revSrt" eq "@xHistThree" ) 
 {   
 # alt + left arrow - back
 $eventString = "'%({LEF})";
 }#if forward or backward

 @xHistThree= ();

 }#if more than 10 data points in 3 finger array

 }else
 { 
 # reset all data points, yes you can have 0 fingers at x,y
 @xHist = ();
 @yHist = ();  
 @xHistThree = ();
 }# if not one or two or three fingers

 # only process one event per time window
 if( $eventString ne "default" )
 { 
 if( abs(time - $eventTime) > 1 )
 { 
 $eventTime = time;
 SendKeys( "$eventString");
 }#if enough time has passed
 $eventString = "default";
 }#if non default event

}#synclient line in

close(INFILE);

Salvate e chiudete il file.

Rimuovete i file di installazione con:

rm -r X11-GUITest-0.21/

Vi ricordo di procurarvi uno di questi:

Ora testate il file appena creato con:

perl gestureListener.pl

Testate il tutto appoggiando tre dita sul touchpad e muovendole leggermente a sinistra o a destra per navigare le pagine avanti o indietro. Questa cosa è più semplice se fatta su touchpad molto larghi o con lo scorrimento verticale (quello a destra del touchpad per intenderci) disabilitato. Se incontrate difficoltà vi conviene abilitare lo scroll con due dita, si trovano molte guide a riguardo, e disabilitare lo scroll laterale.

Nel caso qualcosa non dovesse funzionare, dal touchpad al fornello piccolo della cucina, premete Ctrl+c e tutto dovrebbe tornare alla normalità. Se continuate ad avere problemi aiutatevi con il mouse USB (Non dite che non ve l’avevo detto) per riavviare il sistema.

Se il test appena eseguito ha avuto successo, dovreste essere in grado di navigare con le tre dita. In caso affermativo potete aggiungere questa funzionalità all’avvio seguendo questa guida ed aggiungendo nello spazio “comando”:

perl /home/TUOUTENTE/gestureListener/gestureListener.pl

sostituendo a  TUOUTENTE il tuo nome utente.

Happy Touch a tutti!

I was trying to use touchpad on Macbook Pro (4,1) in Debian 5.0 (Lenny).
By default, it does not have tapping support, and multitouch support.
Even touchpad driver was also unavailable. Therefore, I had compiled
Linux kernel 2.6.29.3 added support for Apple Macbook Touchpad Driver.
Then after booting in new kernel with NVIDIA 8600 GT driver, I have
modified the xorg.conf with following lines.

## In case, you want to revert
$ sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.bk
$ sudo vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf

...
Section "ServerLayout" Identifier
  "Layout0"
  ...
  # Add Synaptics Touchpad as mouse
  InputDevice    "Synaptics Touchpad" "SendCoreEvents" #"CorePointer"
  InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
EndSection

...

Section "Module"
  ...
  # Load synaptics driver for Macbook Pro Touchpad
  Load           "synaptics"
EndSection

...

Section "InputDevice"
  Identifier      "Synaptics Touchpad"
  Driver          "synaptics"
  Option          "SendCoreEvents"        "true"
  Option          "Device"                "/dev/mouse0"
  Option          "Protocol"              "auto-dev" # not using edge scrolling
  Option          "HorizEdgeScroll"       "0"
  Option          "VertEdgeScroll"        "0"

  # use two finger scrolling
  Option          "VertTwoFingerScroll"   "1"
  Option          "HorizTwoFingerScroll"  "1" # set to 0 if you don't want horizontal scrolling

  # scroll speed, lower is faster
  Option          "HorizScrollDelta"      "15"
  Option          "VertScrollDelta"       "15"

  # minimum pressure motion factor
  Option          "PressureMotionMinZ"    "10"

  # touch and untouch thresholds, higher numbers if you like to push hard
  Option          "FingerLow"             "20"
  Option          "FingerHigh"            "60" # change to 30 or 40 if you like

  # FingerPress (Integer) : Above which counts as press
  Option          "FingerPress"           "130"

  # borders based on output from synclient
  Option          "LeftEdge"              "70"
  Option          "RightEdge"             "1120"
  Option          "TopEdge"               "50"
  Option          "BottomEdge"            "750"

  # speeds, smaller number for a slower mouse
  Option          "MinSpeed"              "0.8" # 0.5 is very slow, 1.5 is very fast
  Option          "MaxSpeed"              "1.3" # up to 1.5 works ok
  Option          "AccelFactor"           "0.10"

  # tap times, change to suit your tapping habits
  Option          "MaxTapMove"            "100"
  Option          "MaxTapTime"            "100"
  Option          "MaxDoubleTapTime"      "200"

 # don't change these or two finger tap stops working
 Option          "TapButton2"            "3"
 Option          "TapButton3"            "2"

 # must be commented out or normal tapping wont work
 #Option         "TapButton1"            "0"

 # Right Top Corner Button as right click
 Option          "RTCornerButton"        "2"
 Option          "RBCornerButton"        "0"

 # Left Top Corner Button as middle click
 Option          "LTCornerButton"        "3"
 Option          "LBCornerButton"        "0"

 # Palm Detection: Useful while typing
 Option          "PalmDetect"            "on"
 Option          "PalmMinWidth"          "10"
 Option          "PalmMinZ"              "200"

 # needed for disabled while typing fix
 Option          "SHMConfig"             "on"
EndSection
...

Ultimamente las netbooks tiene multi touch ( multi gestos con varios dedos) y sin excepción mi Eee pc 900, recién instalé Ubuntu Jaunty Jacktalope, esperando que el multi touch funcionara de caja, el cual no fue así, además el mouse se sentía como lento o con poca sensibilidad y gracias a un tutorial encontré la manera de habilitar el multi touch, pero no me función, luego de investigación encontré la manera de habilitar el driver para utilizar el archivo del tutorial.

Editando el archivo /etc/X11/xorg.conf hay que añadir la sección:

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier      "Configured Mouse"
Driver          "synaptics"
Option          "SHMConfig" "true"
EndSection

Luego de guardar el archivo hay que cerrar la sessión y entrar de nuevo para que los cambios surtan efecto, luego editar el archivo de /etc/hal/fdi/policy/11-x11-synaptics.fdi

sudo vim /etc/hal/fdi/policy/11-x11-synaptics.fdi

Mi archivo de configuración es de ésta manera para que el gesto con dos dedos al dar tab sea el del botón central de un mouse:

< ?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<deviceinfo version="0.2">
 <device>
   <match key="info.capabilities" contains="input.touchpad">
       <merge key="input.x11_driver" type="string">synaptics</merge>
       <merge key="input.x11_options.SHMConfig" type="string">On</merge>
       <merge key="input.x11_options.EmulateTwoFingerMinZ" type="string">90</merge>
       <merge key="input.x11_options.VertTwoFingerScroll" type="string">1</merge>
       <merge key="input.x11_options.HorizTwoFingerScroll" type="string">1</merge>
       <merge key="input.x11_options.TapButton1" type="string">1</merge>
   </match>
 </device>
</deviceinfo>

Hay que cerrar la sessión y volver a entrar para que los cambios surtan efecto.

Apple executives said this week they believe the iPhone remains in its infancy and went on to — somewhat uncharacteristically — reveal a series of strategic measures they may employ in the near term to help grow the handset’s share of the booming smartphone market.

The comments came during a meeting between senior company officials and analysts for Oppenheimer, who stopped at the iPhone maker’s Cupertino-based campus Thursday as part of a bus tour that also swung by the headquarters of Synaptics, Trimble Navigation, Zoran, and Cypress Semiconductor.

In a report on the meetings issued to clients Friday, analyst Yair Reiner said Apple sidestepped his questions on new products but remained upbeat about the potential for “considerable” growth through share gains in two of its three core business segments: the Mac and iPhone.

On the Mac side, Apple indicated that some of its strongest prospects for share gains exist internationally, where growth has recently outpaced that of the U.S. For example, the company said last month that unit sales and revenue grew 5 percent and 18 percent, respectively, on a year-over-year basis in Europe compared to an 8 percent unit decline and 8 percent revenue increase in the Americas.

Meanwhile, Reiner wrote that the “iPhone is still in its early days and could gain share by: providing more functionality; lowering prices; growing geographically; or segmenting the market with different models.”

Uncertain whether these assertions where those of the analyst or derived from specific comments by Apple, AppleInsider contacted Reiner for clarification. Surprisingly, the remarks came from management. “[T]hey are not saying they will necessarily do all of these,” the analyst said. “This is basically the menu of options.”

Still, the revelation is noteworthy given that it’s the first time members of the company’s leadership have expressed openly that they may be interested in catering to a broader demographic by fragmenting the iPhone line into a family of phones with materially distinct features and price points.

These comments may support the discovery of references to multiple new iPhone models in the company’s pre-release builds of iPhone Software 3.0. The remarks on lower pricing are similarly interesting, though they’ve been made previously during earlier sit-downs with other analysts.

For his part, Reiner says he expects “some combination of all these” options to materialize over the next six months. In speaking to AppleInsider, he added that when it comes to segmentation of models, “Apple said that one thing would be a constant: iPhone will remain a software centric device.”

Oppenheimer’s visit to Apple’s campus was the second in as many weeks by an equity research firm that provides ongoing coverage of the company. Last week, Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu made the trip in conjunction with a pack of investors that tagged alone for the ride down from San Francisco..

In his write-up of the face-to-face encounter with Apple chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer and Tom Boger, a senior manager in the company’s Mac division, Wu similarly noted that no new product information was shed. However, he said he walked away from the sit-down with higher conviction in his “Buy” thesis on the company and a belief that Apple shares can support a higher trading multiple going forward.

“Apple seemed particularly excited about the China market but wouldn’t comment on timing,” he said, referring to the iPhone maker’s prospects for capitalizing on the world’s largest cell phone market, and suggesting a move into the region could come as early as this summer alongside new iPhones.

Government statistics indicate that there are more than 600 million wireless subscribers spread across the country, with market research firm iSuppli estimating that another 90 million are likely to sign up with a wireless provider this year. So the stakes are high and share ripe for the picking.

Both China Mobile, the world’s largest wireless provider, and China Unicom, its smaller rival ranking second in the country, have both confirmed ongoing negotiations with Apple. However, recent reports indicate that momentum may have recently shifted in China Unicom’s direction after talks between Apple and China Mobile, believed to be its first choice of partner with 415 million subscribers, reportedly broke down.

At the root of the issue were reported demands on the part of China Mobile that it be able control the local version of the App Store. The carrier was also at one point said to be asking that Apple ship it iPhones with both Wi-Fi and 3G technology disabled for competitive reasons. And while there’s no concrete information to suggest Apple would agree to make such concessions, references to “ChinaBrick” discovered in betas of iPhone Software 3.0 leave room for debate.

Apple could also approach China with a multi-carrier strategy, which turned out to be a healthy move in the land of Oz given that it led to increase competition, and ultimately more options consumers, company officials told Wu during their meeting.

“In regards to new carriers beyond AT&T in the U.S., management commented that it remains happy with AT&T but that competition has been good and cited Australia as an example where there are three carriers carrying iPhone,” Wu wrote.

If this is true, this would be extremely great news for future Nokia touchscreen devices. Nokia is often criticized for using resistive touchscreens on both the 5800 and the N97, but it looks like the future will turn out much sweeter for some consumers. Rumour has it that Nokia could use Synaptics capacitive touchscreen technology in their future handsets. We could see this technology implemented as soon as Q3 of this year, so it’s not too far away. “The first Nokia device to use a capacitive touchscreen are described as a ‘high end handset and smartphone’.” I hope that they use this in the Nokia N97, but that’s just my wishful thinking – because it won’t happen. I think that it could be implemented in those spinoff N97 devices, since it would be a good start. Looks like I will hold off from buying a phone until these devices are available. By the way, the above photo is just a concept photo made by Fabien Nauroy.

[Slash Gear]

Apple may face more lawsuits over its use of multi-touch technologies in the iPhone which resembles Stantum's Lemur music control surface patent

Stantum caused a little bit of a stir today at the Interactive Display Conference 2009 in San Jose, Calif.

The French startup claims to be the pioneer of multi-touch technology – the same used by Apple on the iPhone and iPod touch – with its Lemur music control surface, the first commercial product using multi-touch and released in 2004.

“It’s a fantasy to say that Apple can own the technology of this whole industry with their multi-touch patent. And as always, the more noise Apple make about suing everybody over multi-touch, the less the value of there intellectual property (IP),” said Stantum co-founder Guillaume Largillier.

Apple is bluffing with its multi-touch patent, and is now a target for patent infringement lawsuits

Stantum has developed multi-touch technologies for the last 7-years and file patents a few months before Apple’s.

To prove his point, Largillier recalls Elan Microelectronics patent lawsuit earlier this month against Apple claiming the iPhone and the iPod Touch is infringing its patents; and seeking triple damages and a “reasonable royalty.”

“The capacitive displays – used in Apple’s iPhone touchscreen – are a mined area in terms of IP. It’s just the beginning,” warns Largillier.

Speaking later in the day, Synaptics‘ product marketing manager Andrew Hsu was also skeptical on the importance of Apple’s multi-touch 250+ pages patent filing and its 15 claims, saying that it only really about an algorithm for scrolling and panning.

“The technology is not new. Most of the core ideas were there since the late 70s,” said Hsu.