Intel: Your Next Laptop Will Be a Touchscreen Clamshell [Computers]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5898609/intel-your-next-laptop-will-be-a-touchscreen-clamshell

Things are certainly changing in personal computing: laptops are getting smaller and slimmer; tablets are becoming more useful productivity tools; and the whole sector can't quite reach a consensus over what the future holds. But then, Intel drops into conversation that it firmly believes in the one technology most people have dismissed: Clamshell touchscreens.

Speaking to PCWorld, Intel product manager Anand Kajshmanan explained that Intel "fundamentally believe in the concept of touch, and touch on a clamshell," adding that the firm is "strongly encouraging our partners" to add touchscreens to their ultrabooks.

Well, well. We've seen a clamshell tablet from Sony, and it was awful. What's to make a touchscreen laptop better? Not a lot. Steve Jobs famously dismissed the idea—after Apple had conducted tests of the concept—over the fact that vertical touch surfaces lead to fatigue. Without some startling innovation—which is of course possible, and I'd love to be proved long—that isn't set to change.

Elsewhere in the interview, Kajshmanan made an interesting comment over Windows versus OS X, too. Windows, he explained, is itself a prime differentiator when it comes to buying a laptop, calling it "the operating system users have come to love." He has a point. I'm saying he's right, but he has a point. [The Verge]

Image by Travis Isaacs under Creative Commons license