There have been few phones doing text to speech for visually impaired users but a touchscreen phone for blind will be the first. Researchers at the University of Tampere in Finland have taken a Nokia 770 Internet Tablet device which is equipped with piezoelectric material built in the touchscreen and installed a software that mimics Braille’s raised dots and absent dots for recognizing alphabets (raised dot is represented by a single pulse of intense vibration while an absent dot is denoted by a longer vibration).

The result? Reading Braille on a flat surface is difficult but when the users got accustomed with the software’s interface, they could read a character in under 1.5secs. Impressive.

[Via Wired]

MSI and Intel have already made it clear and now Asus is the latest one that is trying to jump in the ‘netvertible’ fray. Asus has confirmed to Fudzilla that they’ll exhibit their touchscreen tablet Eee PCs at the CES show floor.

The models showcased will be an 8.9-inch and 10.2-inch models and will have swivel support to adjust the screen as per user’s liking. They are also working on in-house applications to harness more from Eee PCs touchscreen interface.

In a hands-on session by LaptopMag, Intel has confirmed to them that they will announce its student friendly Classmate PC with a touchscreen interface at the upcoming CES. It will be a convertible tablet which is expected to give birth to a new category called as ‘netvertibles’.

LaptopMag say that the device looks good with the blue in white lid and features a 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor, 1GB RAM, 60GB HDD, Windows XP Home, accelerometer and stylus.

Intel has also included Vision Objects Pen Input for converting handwriting into editable text and has a Quick Launcher sitting on top of the OS to suit the touchscreen interface. They are also in talks with McGraw Hill to provide educational tools.

More pics over here.

Nokia’s seriousness with the touchscreen interface is quite evident as we are seeing another power packed touchscreen phone coming from the Finnish giant. The N97, first touchscreen in the Nseries family is a multimedia monster boasting humongous storage capacity, bigger battery, large vivid screen and a physical QWERTY keypad under the screen.

The phone runs on the 5th Edition of S60, has a 3.5-inch bright nHD screen supporting up to 640×360 pixels and a 16:9 aspect ratio. Other features are common which you could find in any high-end Nseries device like A-GPS, 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens, autofocus and flash, TV-Out, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth with A2DP and a whopping up to 48GB of storage (32GB onboard and 16GB microSD). N97 also integrates the support for N-Gage games and a higher capacity battery of 1500 mAh, capable of giving around 6.6 hours of GSM talk time or 5.3 hours under the WCDMA network.

N97 will sell in first half of next year at a price tag of 550 Euros ($704) before taxes.

Specifications & Features:

Network: GSM 850/900/1800/1900
WCDMA 900/1900/2100
Size: 117.2 x 55.3 x 15.9 mm
Weight: 150 grams
OS: S60 5th Edition Symbian v9.4
Display: 3,5“ bright nHD (640 x 360 pixels and 16:9 aspect ratio) TFT color display with resistive touch screen and tactile feedback
Camera: CMOS 5.0 Megapixel, Auto Focus, Carl Zeiss Optics, Flash
Connectivity: EGPRS, HSDPA, WCDMA, Wi-Fi b/g
Input Methods: QWERTY keyboard, Touch Screen
Memory: 32GB onboard, expandable up to 16GB with microSD cards
Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP and EDR
Music Player
TV-Out
A-GPS with Nokia Maps support
Flash Lite 3.0
Nokia AV 3.5mm
Talk Time: GSM – 6.6 hours/ WCDMA – 5.3 hours
Standby Time: GSM – 430 hours/ WCDMA – 400 hours

So how many vendors we have selling the latest phenomenon better known as netbooks? The scene is already crowded and before Toshiba misses the bus, they have unofficially declared that they want to be a part of this spurting market. A prototype picture has been surfaced which seems to be a mixture of UMPC and netbook and will sport a 5.6-inch touchscreen display unlike other competitor’s QWERTY offerings. The device is said to be powered by Atom processor, run Vista and pack decent features like 64GB SDD and GPS. We can expect the final version to be different but at least we know what they are up to. We’ll keep ya posted as more details emerge.

[PC Authority via TechDigest]

I hear you are a poker fan and you have got enough money to burn. So here I present an automated Poker table which will sit convincingly in the casino room of your mansion. The gigantic table places a 27-inch LCD at the centre which plays the role of a dealer and there are ten 12.1-inch touchscreen displays for the players. There’s also BlackJack and Texas Hold’em pre loaded. I wish it could automatically transfer the winning amount to my bank account. But hey, this is a start. Maybe it could be included in the free lifetime updates. Yes they are free because the investment amount is pricey which stands at $29950.

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[Via SlashGear]