Synaptics has been a serious roll of late, first those luscious multitouch gestures to older trackpads, and last month extending its Gesture Suite to . Here at Computex, the company is expanding its TouchPad family of solutions, with the multi-finger PC TouchPad-IS range seeing the first update. Aside from being able to recognize four-finger gestures, the new platform prevents accidental activation of the cursor when a user’s palm unintentionally contacts the TouchPad, and it also brings the aforementioned multi-finger capabilities of a touchscreen right onto a PC’s trackpad. Read more…

Hey guys, just in case you didn’t know, there’s a crazy party going on this week out on the West Coast. Read more…

There’s going around lately — thing is, nearly all of that buzz is focused on the Verizon side of the camp. What about the other six-odd national carriers in the States and Canada, five of which are using GSM? Well, for you guys, we submit this so-called XT502 — a phone that may be codenamed “Greco” thanks to the naming of the image file found over in the Bluetooth SIG’s certification directory. We can’t gather much from the microscopic image the SIG is using, but they’ve kindly listed radio details, which indicates we can expect a triband HSPA setup working on the 850, 1900, and 2100MHz bands — perfect for AT&T, Bell, Telus, and Rogers with a little dash of Europe thrown in for good measure. Read more…

According to a report in the Financial Times, Google is making a full-throated move away from Windows PCs for the company’s workforce. Apparently the big G is now giving staffers the option of a Mac or Linux rig as an alternative to a Windows computer. The FT article suggests that the move is spurred on by security concerns — some specifically related to a flurry of attacks against the company which emanated from China, a country Google has recently been over . Although security could be at issue, some of the employees interviewed for the article seem to suggest the changes — which mean staffers require CIO approval for a Windows PC — might actually be geared towards bringing into the Googleplex full-throttle. “A lot of it is an effort to run things on Google product,” said one unnamed source, “They want to run things on Chrome.” Another employee is quoted as saying that, “Before the security, there was a directive by the company to try to run things on Google products. It was a long time coming.” Regardless of the reasoning behind the move, if Google is moving the company to Macs and Linux instead of the world’s most popular computing platform, it’s certainly notable. We’ve reached out to both Microsoft and Google for comment, and will update you if and when we have word.

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For all its faults, the prime reason was price. Why buy a Kin when you could get a more capable iPhone, Palm Pre or Android device for the same price? This week, it seems someone at Best Buy HQ has seen the light. As of today, the brick-and-mortar electronics superstore has knocked $50 off the price of both handsets, making the Kin One free and the Kin Two cost only $50 on a two-year contract, with no mail-in rebates or other nonsense required. Read more…

You’re really coming full circle at this year’s Computex, aren’t ya, Intel? It was at the Taipei show two years ago that Chipzilla introduced the , and though it’s taken awhile, the company is finally announcing processors for the category (not to mention slightly changing its party line on the power of the sub-laptops). While the details on the speeds and feeds of the new N series CPUs are being kept under wraps for now, we’ve been told that they’ll support DDR3 RAM and provide comparable performance to the processors, yet still maintain similar battery life to current netbooks. Intel still plans to keep these Atom chips in 10-inch systems, and told us that users will see the speed benefits in multitasking and browsing, rather than in HD playback and gaming. Read more…

Intel’s just released its Computex press release, which beyond detailing its new and platforms, reveals that Acer is about to take a bite out of . Acer CEO Gianfranco Lanci is quoted saying that the company plans to run MeeGo on its future Atom-based tablets and netbooks. There’s no word on using the Intel / Nokia OS on its phones, but we’ll be keeping an ear to the ground on that. Read more…

You know that tabletphone that’s got us all hot and bothered these days? Yeah, well, what with all the , we totally didn’t notice that the device has already been priced in the UK. When it launches on June 4th at The Carphone Warehouse, the Streak will cost you a sizable £429 off-contract — the same Apple wants for an iPad 16GB — but not a penny if you opt for its data plans (carried by O2). With a £25 mobile broadband contract or a £35 voice and unlimited data contract, the five-inch WVGA slate will be yours to take home free — the same as Carphone’s iPhone 3G pricing. Read more…