HP extended its involvement with touch-screen technology yesterday when it announced a revamped version of its Touchsmart all-in-one desktop. But today, the company's general manager of the consumer notebook division, Kevin Frost, went a step further by saying we can expect this same functionality to reach HP laptops long before the launch of Windows 7.
HP's Touchsmart doesn't currently support multi-touch, but the PC maker is expected to include the technology in later incarnations. Given the increasing popularity of multi-touch (ignited by the iPhone) the news shouldn't come as much of a surprise and we'll probably see other notebooks manufacturers follow suit. According to the company, one of the bigger obstacles for multi-touch at the moment is in developing suitable software, not hardware, for laptops.