14 DAY TRIAL // One would have thought that the HP Touchpad, having been sacked and all, would quietly fade into the annals of technological mishaps, but the device just won't stop making the news, most recently having received not just support for an unintended OS, but drivers as well.
The story of the HP TouchPad is one that ended quite abruptly some time ago, when HP decided on a change of direction.
The company decided to completely sack all webOS projects, including smartphones and this particular slate.
Ironically, dropping the price to under $100 for quick sellout led to the item selling so well that the company said it would send out a new batch, although limited.
In the meantime, those with technical know-how got their hands on the thing and began experimenting with how they might get it to run Android and everything else that implies.
As a testament to the perseverance of hackers, the TouchPad really did get Android, though things went even further than that.
Though there will really only ever be a handful of people with all they need to perform the Android port hack, there are now drivers for those who were successful.
Certainly, just getting that OS to run on the item was an accomplishment on its own, but the Android alone can't do everything, not without drivers.
A driver is exactly what the 10-inch product got, one that enables support for the multitouch capabilities of the display.
The results were even included on a new video, the one below, though only through a special testing app.
Nonetheless, the fact that the hacker community got not just five-finger, but 10-finger touch support, is nothing to scoff at, regardless of the fact that few, if anyone, will ever use it to its fullest, what with it being almost impossible, not to mention unnecessary, to get 10 fingers on that screen at once.