Dual-Touchscreen Notebooks Might Come Out in 2010

In the future, tech analysts might look back at the Nintendo DS as being responsible for kicking off the touch-screen revolution. Since the DS's debut, we've seen Apple's iPhone take the mobile phone market by storm, Microsoft push its Surface technology, caught glimpses of touch functionality expected to ship with Windows 7, and now it appears dual-touchscreen notebooks may be on the horizon too.

OLPC talked about using dual-touchscreens it its next generation XO-2 laptop. At half the size of the original, former OLPC CTO Mary Lou Jepsen says the XO-2 will employ dual indoor-and-sunlight displays capable of providing "a right and left page in vertical format, a hinged laptop in horizontal format, and flat, two-screen continuous surface for use in tablet mode."

But OLPC isn't the only one working on a dual-touchscreen notebook, and Italian industrial design agency V12 Design actually developed a similar concept as far back as four years ago called the Canova. Valerio Cometti, the founder and managing director of the firm, claims laptop manufacturers showed interest in the original Cometti and his company is now working on a second generation version. While Cometti remained type lipped regarding which U.S. based company is co-developing the dual-touchscreen laptop, he notes the Canova Generation 2 will support multi-touch input with a software keyboard that appears on the screen. Haptic feedbeek might also be included.

Like OLPC, V12 Designs claims the new dual-touchcreens notebooks will become a reality by 2010. There's no denying companies see touch functionality as an important aspect of future computing, but do you?

Image Credit: V12 Designs