If you have a Synaptics TouchPad, and 70 percent of laptops
do—including Sony, Dell, HP, Gateway and Acer laptops—you may want to
participate in the free Scrybe
beta-testing program by downloading a software upgrade that enables
user-defined gestures. Participating in the beta-test program will also allow
you to help define the standard capabilities to be delivered to OEMs when the
finished product is released.
Scrybe gesture workflows will be included in next-generation
laptops using the Synaptics TouchPad by virtue of the newest Synaptics Gesture
Suite (Version 9.4), which OEMs use to define the capabilities of their
computers' user interface. But why wait? Download the software upgrade
yourself, and you can get a jump on next-generation gesture workflows by
defining your own. Scrybe enables users to define multitouch finger movements
for use as shortcuts to increase productivity, get work done more efficiently
and just have fun.
Scrybe gesture technology aims to fundamentally change the
man-machine interface, according Ted Theocheung, head of the Scrybe program and
PC and Digital Home Business Unit products.
Personalized gestures can be defined to link together
task-oriented workflows for any application, such as shortcuts to your favorite
Websites and media apps or to increase productivity. Many tasks that used to
require the use of the keyboard can now be defined as custom gesture symbols.
One example given by the Scrybe team is double-clicking on a word to highlight
it, then drawing a question mark on the TouchPad, which launches a browser and
does a Google search on the selected word.
Check out the Scrybe demonstration
videos for many more ideas. Examples include gestures to run
presentations; load digital media; control play, pause, previous and next
commands; and scroll through playlists. Scrybe gesture workflows can be defined
for specific applications, such as to rotate, crop, tag, rate and edit images
in Photoshop; perform OS functions; or surf to your favorite Websites, all from
TouchPad gestures.
Scrybe works best if you already have a multitouch TouchPad,
but it also supports the single-touch TouchPads already installed on many
laptops. The Synaptics Gesture Suite comes with predefined media control
gestures for stop, play, rewind, fast-forward, next, previous and jog dial
advance. OS gestures for zoom, fit to window, flip and redo are also predefined,
as well as OS operations for Windows 7. An application programming interface is
also provided for developers wanting to define specific gestures for their
application programs.
A control panel launched
from the system tray allows users to customize all settings, and features short
video tutorials demonstrating how gesture recognition works with specific
workflows. Contextual pop-up tips also explain specific Scrybe capabilities and
how to use them.
