Flash on the iPad/iPhone will never happen, right, and the reasons have run the gamut from “Apple vendetta” to “Flash is an energy and resource hog.” Is the real, mind-numbingly simple explanation all about touch, mouse cursors and hovering? Possibly! That’s what a real, live Adobe Flash developer is saying this weekend, and I have to admit his simple “hover/mouseover” argument makes a lot of sense. You see, says Morgan Adams, with current flash sites and flash games and whatnot, the software requires a mouse pointer to function properly, as well as the ability to distinguish between hovering and actual clicking. You see this in Hulu video player controls and with those annoying Cialis banner ads that swell in size when you accidentally hover over them with your cursor.

Ready for another dustup in multitouch land ? Turns out that cool Displax multitouch film we saw a few days ago is actually called ViP Interactive Foil, and was developed in 2004 by a company called Visual Planet — Displax was just showing it off to promote their new touch controller, but didn’t tell anyone about the source of the film when that’s where all the interest was. Naturally that’s got Visual Planet in a bit of a tizzy, especially since it’s developing a touch controller of its own for release down the line; the two companies have been partners in the past but there’s no agreement now. Displax says it’s looking at several suppliers for the film as it rolls towards that promised July ship date — we’ll see if any of this gets sorted out by then. Displax multitouch film actually developed by Visual Planet, frowny faces all around originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Feb 2010 11:57:00 EST.

Ready for another dustup in multitouch land ? Turns out that cool Displax multitouch film we saw a few days ago is actually called ViP Interactive Foil, and was developed in 2004 by a company called Visual Planet — Displax was just showing it off to promote their new touch controller, but didn’t tell anyone about the source of the film when that’s where all the interest was. Naturally that’s got Visual Planet in a bit of a tizzy, especially since it’s developing a touch controller of its own for release down the line; the two companies have been partners in the past but there’s no agreement now. Displax says it’s looking at several suppliers for the film as it rolls towards that promised July ship date — we’ll see if any of this gets sorted out by then. Displax multitouch film actually developed by Visual Planet, frowny faces all around originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Feb 2010 11:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds .

Ready for another dustup in multitouch land ? Turns out that cool Displax multitouch film we saw a few days ago is actually called ViP Interactive Foil, and was developed in 2004 by a company called Visual Planet — Displax was just showing it off to promote their new touch controller, but didn’t tell anyone about the source of the film when that’s where all the interest was. Naturally that’s got Visual Planet in a bit of a tizzy, especially since it’s developing a touch controller of its own for release down the line; the two companies have been partners in the past but there’s no agreement now. Displax says it’s looking at several suppliers for the film as it rolls towards that promised July ship date — we’ll see if any of this gets sorted out by then. Displax multitouch film actually developed by Visual Planet, frowny faces all around originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Feb 2010 11:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds .

Admit it. As confusing and impractical of a concept that the Gesture Cube may be, If Apple had announced this instead of the iPad, the world would have gone freaking nuts. [ Gesture Cube via CrunchGear ]

Delta’s Touch Sensitive Faucet does one thing and one thing well: It dispenses water when touched with any part of your body, then shuts off when touched again. Not only that, it’s also a pretty fantastic faucet. The Price: $547 on Delta’s site, but $300ish if you shop around The Verdict: This is a high quality faucet, even without the touch features, and most likely beats whatever faucet you have installed in your house when you built/bought it. Add the touch features to that, and you get the first true revolution in sink faucets that I’ve seen in a while. This actually isn’t Delta’s first touch-sensitive faucet. They had one model before that had this feature plus a motion-sensitivity, and discovered that most people only used the touch-sensitivity and decided to focus there instead

Apple might have finally released the iPad , but the rumor mill is already on to prognosticating about the next rev — and as usual, Apple’s patents and patent applications are everyone’s favorite place to start. (And for good reason, really — that very first design patent we inititally noticed way back in 2004 is exactly what the iPad looks like, down to the bezel and Dock connector.) The latest tidbit is a patent granted earlier this week on an intelligent touch-sensitive bezel, which would essentially extend the touchpanel beyoned the edges of the screen to create an entire border of context-specific soft buttons — the iPod app might have playback controls at the bottom, while Safari could put the navigation bar down there and Pages could do formatting stuff at the top. It’s sort of interesting — Palm similarly extends the touch area beyond the screen on the Pre and the Pixi, but not quite like this — but we can’t see how touching the bezel next to an on-screen label is much better than just pressing the screen. Of course, there’s no guaranteeing Apple’s actually going to use any of this in any future products whatsoever, but we’re sure that won’t stop some analyst from waving their magic analyst wand and saying their “supply checks” have indicated a major ODM is already producing these. It’s nice that the world is so predictable sometimes, isn’t it?

Fair enough, most Logitech products fall into the “so boring I fell asleep at first glance” category, but this PC/Mac-controlling iPhone app sounds simple to use—and is free. You’ll have to download the app to your iPhone or iPod Touch, as well as the Touch Mouse Server software on your computer. The app uses Wi-Fi to turn the device into a wireless trackpad and keyboard, for those times when you’re lying in bed and wanting to pause a film or search for something. The app will display the text on the screen so you don’t have to strain your eyes at the computer screen, and supports two finger scrolling, landscape/portrait virtual trackpads and keyboards and the choice of either two or three mouse buttons. It’s not revolutionary, with similar apps already available, but Logitech’s made quite a name for itself in the easy-to-use, safe product market, so it’s definitely worth trying out if the thought of getting out of bed really doesn’t interest you on this particular Monday.

Usually reading the patent tea leaves is an inaccurate science at best, without knowing how exactly a proposed technology will fit into a company’s product plans. Other times, there’s an actual drawing of an iPod Touch with a video camera. The patent was filed in the summer of 2009, but only just published today by the US Patent Office. It’s maybe not the most surprising news in the world, given that the iPhone 3GS is already equipped with the technology. There really hasn’t been a good reason for the Touch not to have a camera, other than Steve Jobs dithering about how people just don’t want one . That’s always seemed like poppycock, and I’m glad it looks like Apple’s started to agree

Alongside these little beauties , Sling has also unveiled the Sling Touch Control 100 which, although it sounds like some kind of pervo pantyhose, it ain’t. Shucks. And it’s only available via your cable or satellite provider. Double shucks.