In the current smartphone market, you need to choose between LCD touchscreens (incredible UI versatility) and real QWERTY buttons (tactile feedback). But the MorphPad offers a third choice that’s somewhere in between. Little more than a proof of concept at the moment, this demo shows us a QWERTY Bluetooth remote filled with dynamic, reconfigurable buttons. This idea alone is beyond most current QWERTY implementation, but then Pelikon takes innovation a step further by allowing a majority of their keys to go blank and serve as a touch-sensitive pad (for mousing, gestures, etc). My main concern isn’t whether or not the tech works (you can spot it in Toshiba’s Biblio ), but whether or not the button-built touchpad really feels very comfortable to use. And frankly, to all the worried Blackberry/Sidekick loyalists in the house, touch screens really aren’t so bad to type on

It sounds nice: Turning your notebook trackpad into a gesture area for shortcuts, like instantly searching, with a squiggle of your finger. But you have to learn a whole series of strokes, so it’s like Palm Graffiti all over again. In practice, if you learn all of the gestures, it basically works like Quicksilver on a Mac , except with a trackpad instead of a keyboard. Press a button to activate gestures, then draw what you wanna do, which, theoretically, happens instantly. The onscreen graphical pop-up even kinda looks like Quicksilver’s. But it’s not nearly as fast, and it’s kind of a strange abstraction for a laptop that’s one step to the side, and two steps backward, with your shoelaces tied together

An obscure company has filed suit in a copyright infringement-friendly Texas district against Apple and several other companies it for what it contends is—wait for it—copyright infringement related to touchpad technology. The iPhone and iPod-related lawsuit, filed Wednesday, also includes Microsoft (Zune), Cowon (Curve), iRiver LG, high end speaker firm Bang & Olufsen, Philips and even iPhone clone manufacturer Meizu. There are 20 defendants named in all. The lawsuit states that all 20 defendants have in one form or another abused a 2003 patent (left vague in the lawsuit) that “recognizes different swipe movements on a touchpad without having to provide visual feedback or to look at the player to understand what’s taking place.” Tsera says it wants plain old money and “enhanced damages” from Apple for misuse of the patent.