I would ask "copyright infringement?" but then I saw the right click button.

@dwight-schrute: lol!

It still seems comic to me that Apple could find a two finger track pad to be an easy to use feature, and yet a two button track pad is just too complicated. Asus clearly does not care about complication, and is just going to add any feature that is cheap to implement.

God Jobs has his lawyers ready to show them a finger all right.

@dwight-schrute: It's not copyright, it's patent you're thinking of.

I'd be all over this new version of the Eee PC if the screen actually did a twist-n-flip or something so it could be used in tablet mode. I don't know that there's a point for having touchscreen if it doesn't. Certainly not worth upgrading from the one I have now.

@dwight-schrute: patent infringement would be more likely

Now, show me on the track pad where the Asus EEE PC touched you. Feel free to use two fingers.

I think these are the same movements my girlfriend told me to use. You think she could sue them for stealing her idea?

@Noobs-R-Us: Yes. It's the finger he's not using for right-clicking.

@Iffrat: Ha! I think you might have a case.

You know, I like the eee line. I think it's a really great product. So it leads me to question what benefit this offers, really. The EEE is great because it is (or was, at the time) relatively unique in the realm of sub-notebooks or whatever we're calling these things nowadays. This is a feature that was unique to mac and as someone who owns both a mac and a pc, I can honestly say not one that makes or breaks a piece of hardware. GPS, or a touchscreen or something like that would have really 'made' this thing, over the earlier model. I think the extra ram/storage out of the box is nice, but multitouch...nah...to quote woot, "do not want".

@Mitch: yeah, this is not a deal breaker. i plan on buying the this, but it's not b/c it has multi-touch... it's b/c it has a bigger screen!

Having only played with the 2 finger pinch scrolling on a MBA, it just feels like an ultra clumsy way to zoom and scroll.
Maybe it would be better if you were used to it, but it just felt like it would take way more time to use; some of the times I tried it on the MBA, I would find myself doing the same motion over and over, just to get the zoom where I wanted it.
Again, maybe the feeling would change if used on the regular, but this will have to remain to be seen, as I will never be buying a MBA (or an Asus PC900 for that matter).

Ok, x let her rip.....*Holds back laughter*

@Mitch: not only my girl but all girls over the world

@weatherman: I stand corrected. Thanks for relieving me of my ignorance.

More and more attractive this little white mini laptop... if they still get the price UNDER $500 for all this goodies, I think I WILL go for it: bigger screen, GPS features, better storage capacity... and now touch screen and Apple like enhanced trackpad.... Yum yum !

@Iffrat: With a scoop of teh fingers at the end, in a clockwise manner.

It would be a lot simpler if they just added an extra touchpad-strip. Slide finger down for zoom/scroll in. Finger up for out. It's a lot more accurate. And as an extra, it could even be used as throttle control in flight-sims.

Would the trackpad be larger then? The current EeePC's pad is way too small to do this properly.

@Kaiser-Machead: Yeah it's bigger, from what I can tell.

This isn't going to stand. Apple's Macbooks and Macbook Pro's have been doing two finger window scrolling for years now. Like 4 or 5 years. Patent infringement FTL!

@Monty:

all track pad Macs have a right click function, you simply place two fingers on the pad and click. There is no need for another button.

Still waiting for multi-touch gestures to be added to older Macs…or solid evidence that it isnt possible.

Wow.. UGLY.

Totally didn't expect them to throw a multi-touch in there. I DO expect them to jack the price up like crazy now though.

Doesn't a lot of the touchpads support multi-touch anyways?

I was reading about hackint0sh setups where people were people had similar functionality on non-apple hardware.

Why can't we get some nice software or driver updates to get that to work :(

I want the skinned one!

Shouldn't those "zoom out" and "zoom in" diagrams be other way around? Does moving your fingers closer together (as second diagram suggests) really zoom out?

I agree touchscreen would be great, but I guess they're trying to keep the price down.

@lightningrob: Nope. They copied Apple perfectly.

someone gonna get suuuuued

I bet they get away with it. And so they should.

Actually, the 70x Eees have the same two-finger scrolling touchpad. You just have to add two lines to your xorg.conf. My guess is that since Synaptics (AFAIK) makes the MacBook touchpads, they don't see any reason to make a seperate line without it.

BTW, the scrolling in Synaptics's Windows drivers still sucks

short of scrolling the multi-touch is pretty useless anyway.

...and there were hacks to do single finger scrolling on Powerbooks that were available long before Apple did it and IMO much easier to use than the two-finger BS Apple later came up with.

though the two-finger scroll took all of maybe a day before i stopped even noticing it.

as far as right-click goes... click+hold(0.15sec) brings up a right-click for me. much better than two-finger click and (*gasp!*) much better than a physical secondary button. try it and you'll soon realize how dumb both a physical button or a two-finger-click are in comparison.

the days of a single-button being an important key point of rhetoric are numbered. why it was ever a key point to begin with is actually a good question... but then anything evenly minutely "different" scares some people into a frothing madness for some reason. i am perfectly fine on (and work with) both Mac or PC... one-button or two. i just prefer Mac and certainly don't hate PCs with the conviction and fervor of your average anti-Apple evangelist.

@weatherman:

There's Fujitsu's that are about the same ize and have the twist and flip going on.

[store.shopfujitsu.com]

John Negroponte here.

That looks really cool. I'd buy one!

@ConstyXIV:
What are the two lines?

How many more features are they gonna put into this thing? And what will it cost? I'm losing buying interest here.

@Camperton:

But the Fujitsu isn't exactly in the same $$$ range. :P

If someone's willing to take the time...I'd like to know if the multi-touch in the MBA is a hardware, firmware, or software issue. More specifically, what would it take for my new macbook to have the Air's multi-touch ability?

FYI...I use a whole lot more than two fingers for touching the ladyz

That touchpad has serious cameltoe.

@secretmanofagent:
In your /etc/X11/xorg.conf , under the section that starts:
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad"
add at the bottom:
Option "VertTwoFingerScroll" "1"
Option "HorizTwoFingerScroll" "1"
Giz ate my tabs, so you're going to have to re-align them yourself.

The EEE touchpad already allows for one finger scrolling. There is a line on the right edge of the touchpad. Put your finger there and move it up or down to scroll. Why is two finger scrolling considered an improvement?

@Alan713: didn't you see the MacBook's multitouch features? [www.apple.com]

How can they say there's no touchscreen, when the vice president of Asustek's sales department confirmed it yesterday - [clumpc.com]

@Alan713: didn't you see the Macbook's multitouch features? [www.apple.com]

How can they say there will be no touchscreen when they just confirmed it: [clumpc.com]

I don't see how Apple could sue for them using the same movement technology.

I don't think we'll see legal action unless it's between the manufacturers of the trackpads on the eee and Macbook, assuming they're different. Apple's two-finger scrolling and multi-touch functions were developed by its suppliers and not by Apple itself.