Would you believe that Acer is working on a frameless laptop with touchscreen keyboard? As far-fetched as the idea might be, it’s certainly plausible, expected even. The idea, as rumored by DigiTimes , involves doing away with the display’s frame by printing colors directly onto the back of the display’s reinforced glass substrate from Corning (a la Gorilla Glass presumably). Coupled with a touchscreen keyboard, the rumored device should be impossibly thin by traditional laptop comparisons. Keep in mind that we’ve already seen this Frame Zero concept pictured above from Fujitsu and Acer’s arch-rival ASUS has been showing off its dual-display laptop prototype with touchscreen keyboard for months

Panasonic has the news day all to itself with its newfangled pair of Micro Four Thirds shooters, and in case you were wondering — yeah, this is the exact same duo that we saw slip out on Friday. Up first is the Lumix DMC-G2, which looks an awful lot like the G1 it replaces and is touted as the first interchangable lens system camera with touch-control shooting. Granted, we haven’t exactly warmed to the idea of using a touchpanel to fire off a shot, but hey, it is what it is. Other specs include a 12.1 megapixel Live MOS sensor, Venus Engine HD II technology, a 3-inch rear LCD and a 720p (AVCHD Lite) movie mode, though curiously enough a price and release date eludes us. Moving on, there’s the DMC-G10, which is supposedly the “world’s lightest” interchangeable lens camera with a viewfinder; this one packs the same 12.1 megapixel sensor and Venus Engine HD II as on the G2, but the 3-inch LCD lacks tilt / swivel / touch options. We’re still waiting on pricing for this one as well, but now is as good a time as any to mention that both fully support those obnoxiously expensive SDXC cards

For all the fuss made at its launch back in August , Sony’s Reader Daily Edition has all but dropped off the map in terms of interest. Remember, Sony’s response to the Kindle gave us a 7-inch touchscreen device with free AT&T 3G data for a street price of $399. Now we’ve got a proper in-depth review of the thing. On the plus side, the interface is simple and easy to understand right out of the box with nice, oversized icons suitable for your meat digit manipulation. Unfortunately, the Daily Reader was also sluggish

While resistive touchscreens are being phased out in favor of capacitive screens, Carnegie Mellon University and Microsoft are working together on touchscreens for your body, called Skinput. Sure, you could just get one of those laser keyboards and project it onto your arm, but Skinput actually recognizes which part of your body you’ve tapped, based on the sound that’s made on either the skin, muscle or skeleton. The wearer must strap on an armband containing piezoelectric cantilevers, or sensors that measure pressure, acceleration and force, with a pico projector similar to what’s found in phones beaming the interface onto the skin. The technology could be used with gaming, or even pair up wirelessly to phones or PCs for a different form of input. I quite like the idea of texting just by dancing my fingers on my forearm, with the message sent by Bluetooth to the phone in my pocket—or taking my shoe off and beaming the keyboard and menu onto the sole, just like Maxwell Smart. [ New Scientist ]

Alright, we know there’s a big old watermark covering it up, but the HD2’s price when it makes its eagerly awaited US debut on T-Mobile has been identified as being $199 after rebate, presumably as part of a two-year commitment with the carrier. As usual with such screen grabs, we can’t be 100 percent sure, but that number seems to be in the right ballpark, and is joined by a $129 price for Motorola’s Cliq XT and a $69 sticker for Nokia’s Nuron handset. All three are expected to arrive at some point this month , though we urge caution with the HD2 — it’s still only a Windows Mobile 6.5 device, in spite of Microsoft’s equivocations about Windows Phone 7, and should be obtained solely on the basis of what you know. That is to say, you’d better really love HTC’s Sense UI and that 4.3-inch screen, because you’ll be buying into an OS with a very short remaining shelf life, no prospects of future app development, and no guarantees about upgrades. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in] HTC HD2 and Moto Cliq XT pricing revealed in T-Mobile database? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Mar 2010 07:45:00 EST

Want a tablet computer sans all the brand loyalty drama and eye-opening prices? Haleron ’s got just the thing for you with its iLet Mini HAL. Its humble spec brings only a 600MHz VIA CPU and 128MB of DDR2 RAM to the table, but it runs Android 1.6 and if all you want is a tablet to access the web with, do you really need more? Additionally, the onboard 2GB of flash storage is augmented with 10GB of cloud storage and the cheap expandability that’s on offer via flash memory cards or USB drives.

An 2004 Apple patent app that was recently filed for continuation describes a touchscreen iMac that recognizes shapes, allowing you to interact with your computer as you might a toddler’s geometric puzzle. So, you could unlock your computer by holding up an appropriately shaped key. Or, well, Apple can explain it it full: The pattern 122 may be any shape whether simple or complex. Some examples of patterns include circles, squares, triangles, dots, dashes, coat of arms, logos, symbols, text and the like. Other examples include binary patterns and Braille symbols. The pattern may be related to the action to be performed.

Want evidence for the old saying that there’s always something next to wait around for with technology? We’ve only just reviewed the most bodacious X200 Tablet from Lenovo, yet already there’s a capacitive multitouch display that promises to be that little bit better. LG’s in-cell multitouch technology places the touchy-feely parts inside — rather than as a film on top of — the LCD panel, which we’re told eliminates the loss of picture quality and brightness that regular multitouch results in. It only works with two fingers so far, but LG is still pretty pleased with itself for being the first to gain the Windows 7 Touch Logo sticker with this technology, which was previously limited to cellphone-sized displays . Mass production is set for the second half of this year, and we’ll go ahead and assume that local nemesis Samsung will be using every moment until then to offer its own competing models . Bring on the marginally better touchscreens! LG’s in-cell multitouch laptop displays get unveiled, certified with Windows 7 Touch Logo originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Feb 2010 03:24:00 EST

You’ll be forgiven for just glazing over during CES and ignoring all those ebook readers that were raining down , but Liquavista ’s attempt at marrying the endurance of e-paper with the desirability of color is well worth another look . The company has now furnished its LiquavistaColor dev kit with a QWERTY keyboard and also recruited Texas Instruments into the fold, whose OMAP system-on-a-chip is doing the grunt work under the hood. The video after the break indicates that touchscreen interaction is also planned, but the most impressive thing has to be the total lack of any redrawing pauses, which may be the considered the biggest drawback to the many E Ink devices out there. For the more conventional monochromatic crowd, we’ve also grabbed video of the LiquavistaBright, which replicates the rapid refresh skills, but omits the keyboard and OMAP in favor of a more compact form factor and Freescale iMX5x hardware. Slide past the break to see it all

Vitra, a Swiss furniture manufacturer, recently completed the Vitrahaus as a presentation space for their collection. Yes, that’s a real photograph. The building’s comprised of 12 stacked “houses,” and if you can believe it, the inside is no less stunning. Designed by Herzog and de Meuron, Vitrahaus’s large, house-shaped windows provide various views of the surrounding area during the day—it is located on the border of Germany and Switzerland, in the town of Weil am Rhein—but at night the focus flips, with the windows becoming glowing portals into which passersby can peer. The inside is clean and minimalist which lets Vitra’s colorful furniture take center stage.