As further evidence of just how feared and respected Apple is in the electronics industry — their every product is scrutinized, studied at length, and its new ideas and design aesthetics copied by pretty much everyone else — Microsoft has secretly been at work on a whole bunch of new prototypes for a multitouch mouse. The folks at MS Labs are doing some wildly cool stuff, but are they merely reacting once again to Apple’s already-rumored efforts to release a multitouch mouse of their own?
Multitouch, in case you’re not familiar with the term, refers to gesture-based controls primarily used on …read more

With Windows 7 supporting multitouch, you have to wonder what its OS-tan will look like. OS-tans — Japanese fan mascots for various operating systems — take the form of cute anime girls with characteristics representative of their respective OSes. 2000-tan is businesslike, XP-tan is bouncy, etc.

Screw Microsoft Surface. It’s nothing but a big-ass table. Here’s how to make your own multitouch pad for $50. Software and hardware updates here.