The International Consumer Electronics Show and MacWorld led Mike Musgrove of the Washington Post to comment on the number of new phones coming out with touch screen technology - inspired by the iPhone.

What, you say, the iPhone was NOT the first touch screen telephone? No, sorry, Apple didn’t invent touch screen technology. But as we see how the iPhone and iPod Touch have taken off, you would think they had a corner on the market. Not only is touch screen technology NOT limited to the telephone; there are some pretty exciting developments coming down the road!

Touch screen technology has been sneaking onto the stage over the last couple of years, and new applications - telephones aside - are being envisioned, prototyped, and launched all the time. A new touch screen - two-handed, front and back - is being developed by a joint venture between Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs and Microsoft Research. A “see-through” technology called LucidTouch combines touch screen with a touch pad on the back. (Click on the images to read articles from Portfolio and MIT Technology Review.)

Handhelds and telephones are all well and good, but when you really want to throw yourself into your work, this technology will do it! “Large multi-touch screens that accommodate 10, 20, or even more [!] fingers” were highlighted in an MIT Technology Review article this time last year. In a video from Perceptive Pixel (see it here), the company founded to develop and market the wide-screen, multi-touch system, you can see Jeff Han (the inventor) reach across two huge screens to move images around. Now THIS is amazing technology!