Apple This

Last week Apple announced that it had added a little “magic” to its product line: the Magic Trackpad.  What is the Magic Trackpad?   Much like the trackpad on your laptop, Apple’s Magic Trackpad acts as a replacement for the mouse on your desktop computer.  It will connect to your Mac via a Bluetooth wireless link.

The Magic Trackpad also gives some of your Mac applications multitouch capabilities.  According to Apple, the new product will offer a “standard touch experience” that will allow you to do things such as flip through pages, rotate images, and scroll websites with two fingers.  Multitouch seems to be a new trend with Apple these days.  Many of Apple’s smaller gadgets, including the iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad, Magic Mouse, and Mac laptops, feature the technology.

The idea of the Trackpad began in 2005 when Apple acquired a company called Fingerworks.  They specialized in a “mouse pad that could use gesture recognition to perform tasks on a computer, including opening files by turning multiple fingers on the pad,” according to the New York Times. These products were popular with people who had repetitive strain injury from using a traditional mouse or keyboard.

Fingerworks was originally developed in the 90’s by University of Delaware student Wayne Westerman and Professor John Elias.

The Magic Trackpad will cost you about $70.

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