Posted 08/11/09 at 09:00:50 AM by Paul Lilly

Creative has filed a patent that could change the way we operate touchscreen devices. Filed back in January under the 3DLabs brand, the patent describes a drag and drop user interface with "action tabs."

In a nutshell, users would be able to manipulate "action" areas of the screen and drag objects (like a music title or video, for example) onto an action tab. Or as Creative describes the technology in its filing:

"A system and methods for a novel user interface of a touch sensitive screen for pocket device. The user interface contains display items and action tabs. Display items are configured to be draggable if being dragged at substantially horizontal direction; display items are configured to be scrollable if being dragged at substantially vertical direction. Dragging and releasing a draggable item to an action tab causes a specified action or a sequence of actions being applied to the item."

Because Creative filed the patent under its 3DLabs brand, now known as ZiiLabs, we wouldn't be surprised to see this technology show up on the Zii EGG.

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Posted 07/02/09 at 03:07:54 PM by Andy Salisbury

Google recently introduced another tweak to their Gmail interface, allowing users that aren’t quite at home with the labeling system to use them as folders.

With the introduction of drag and drop to Gmail, your list of labels will move from the lower left-hand corner to the upper left-hand corner, directly underneath “Inbox” and “Sent Mail.” Google hopes that this will allow users see them more like traditional folders.

Drag and drop comes into play with the use of the labels themselves. Instead of adding tags to each individual message, you’ll instead be able to drag and drop your messages into the label of your choosing.

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