In fact, Elan's Smart Remote is so close to what I remember seeing that it might be the same hardware.

Regardless, what's brilliant about the remote is/was not only the laptop-like touchpad allowing for a new level of universal functionality, but its smartphone-like ability to orient function based upon portrait or landscape positioning. In other words, when you hold the remote like a remote, it acts as a remote. When you turn the remote like a game controller, it acts as a game controller. (Onscreen diagrams keep your head straight.)

Now if only Elantec would sell this thing. [via Engadget]

This is still just a concept, but it's one of the rare ones that could, with a little ingenuity, plausibly get built. I mean, clappers did, so it sort of has to, right? [NewLaunches]

While the raw tech isn't new (capacitive proximity sensors have been around in other forms for a while), this application is, and could prove useful in situations where the sterility is necessary. Alps says that they've still got a few problems to address, namely that device "often malfunctions." Of course, there's also the fact that using one of these things will invariably make you look like you're trying to perform a magic trick and/or dramatically faith-heal your laptop, two of the most surefire methods for remaining alone for the rest of your life. [TechOn]

Apparently the team from Nottingham found it fairly easy to image the blood movements underneath your fingernails as you push on something, so their camera tracks these changes and works out whether you're touching an object and with what pressure. Try it out yourself: it's fairly easy to spot the color moving around beneath your nail.

Since the system doesn't require complex touchpad technology, it's pretty simple and cheap to produce. Good for tactile museum exhibits thinks the science team; good for whacky game console controllers think I. There's just one flaw: nail polish can confuse the camera, so naked nails it is. [New Scientist]

Very zen, but what does it mean?

Seems like the LEDs are too expensive for the sub-$2000 MacBooks. But the difference in the answers above (one gives the reason of cost and one doesn't give much of an answer) kind of implies that the lack of multi in the standard is another way to separate the standard from the pro. That's too bad, because like the pinching and zooming on the Air and iPhone, I think non-professional Mac users could get a kick out of using it too. Maybe next round.

While most of it sounds fairly cosmetic, the idea of a touchpad that glows brighter with more pressure, follows around tactile input by the user, and changes color sounds pretty damn cool to us, and helps make things more intuitive on the user's end. The 34 page patent outlines the plans which sound like anything from an LCD touchscreen to a traditional touchpad backlit with LEDs. From the patent:

By way of example, it may be desirable to provide visual stimuli at the touch pad so that a user can better operate the touch pad. For example, the visual stimuli may be used (among others) to alert a user when the touch pad is registering a touch, alert a user where the touch is occurring on the touch pad, provide feedback related to the touch event, indicate the state of the touch pad, and/or the like.

Apple files new patent for wide touchpad for notebooks [Macsimum News]