This probably has nothing to do with Apple iPhone ditching the keyboard for a gorgeous big screen, but some laptop manufacturers (Estari and Canovo, for example) are doing the same in their own way.
What you get is a folding tablet PC with two (touch) screens. You can hold it like a newspaper (and wish it could be as light), and one of the screens can double up as a keyboard when you want.
Oomph factor aside, the Estari machine is low on specs and high on cost ($4350). Canovo machine (like the iPhone) is nothing more than an announcement right now. Seems like this dual-touch screen model is not ready for mass market yet.
On a related note, I saw the demo of a multi touch screen system in last year’s SIGGRAPH by Jeff Han from NYU. It’s like what you might have seen in one of the iPhone demos – zooming an image by holding it with two fingers and moving them apart, but it’s a lot more. Jeff maintains a Multi-touchscreen.com. Do check out the video – he shows off many interesting applications of this multi touch interaction.
On another related note, this concept phone from BenQ is “basically one big touchscreen”.
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