News.blog: Windows 7 gets multi-touch

Microsoft plans to add multi-touch interface to Windows 7, top executives announced on Tuesday at The Wall Street Journal’s D: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, California.

Chairman Bill Gates and chief executive Steve Ballmer showed the new Windows features as part of their keynote at the event, with Gates adding that the new technology will be available in late 2009.

Microsoft corporate vice president Julie Larson-Green demonstrated the multi-touch technology, painting with several fingers at the same time to show how it can process not just touch, but multiple simultaneous input.

"It's much faster to do certain tasks than using a mouse," Larson-Green said. She also showed rotating photos by pinching and rotating, much like Microsoft's Surface or Apple's iPhone.

Microsoft had previously hinted that the touch gestures would find their way into Windows. Yet the technology will also work with existing touchscreens -- it was shown running on an existing Dell laptop.

A demo of the multi-touch technology is available on a Microsoft blog.