Multi-Touch Arriving Tomorrow for Latitude XT Owners

Dell has announced that multi-touch will be coming to current Latitude XT customers via a software update beginning tomorrow, July 15. The update will be free.

If I’m not mistaken, this will make the Latitude XT the first laptop / tablet pc that actively supporting multi-touch through the screen.

The update will allow for the following types of multi-touch uses:

• Scroll — by placing two fingers on the screen and moving them horizontally or vertically customers can easily navigation in web browsers and productivity applications.
• Zoom — by touching the screen with two fingers and moving them together customers can zoom various content in and out, such as pictures or Web pages. 
• Programmable double-tap — customers can program a command, such as launching a Web browser or turning the screen off to save power, that will respond to two taps with two fingers.

This is very exciting! I can’t wait to begin trying this out tomorrow. Update: LaptopMag has hands-on video of the new multi-touch update.

From the Direct2Dell.com blog – video demo below:

Since we introduced the award-winning Latitude XT tablet, capacitive touch capability is one thing that set it apart from the competition. Several weeks ago at the Wall Street Journal’s D6: All Things Digital Conference, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer highlighted upcoming multi-touch capability that Windows 7 will bring. Chris Flores’ post and video kicked off a flurry of conversations in Techmeme, and we were pumped that they used a Latitude XT was one of the machines Microsoft used show off multi-touch in Windows 7.

But, Latitude XT customers don’t have to wait for Windows 7 to use multi-touch. Tomorrow we will introduce a software update globally via support.dell.com for the Dell tablet that will bring multi-touch to both Windows XP and Vista. With this update, customers can use the functionality in several standard apps like Google Earth, Outlook and Microsoft Office, web browsers like Firefox and Internet Explorer 7, and XP’s Windows Picture viewer and the Vista’s Windows Photo Gallery. Take a look at this video from Hans Eilers and Roy Stedman from the Office of the CTO for a demo of how this works.