Question regarding Synaptic Touchpads and Multitouch

[GushpinBob]

IIRC there was a report not too long ago about how Synaptics was going to release some sort of firmware upgrade for their touchpads to make them somewhat multitouch capable. I did a little research and saw that they're introducing the usual motions associated with multitouch technology like 'pinch' for zooming in and out.

My laptop has a Synaptics Touchpad, but it is around two years old. Does anyone know if this firmware upgrade applies to nearly all of their touchpads or just certain types made in the past year?

 

[GushpinBob]

Nobody has any idea?

 

[Impulse]

I don't know if this is backwards compatible with older Synaptic touchpads thru a driver/firmware update but the Synaptic touchpad on my Acer Aspire One netbook shipped with multi-touch support out of the box, and as far as I know they've been shipping as so for a couple of months... It's not mentioned much in reviews or anything (of the AA1 or any other Synaptic-equipped netbook), and I dunno why, since people are always harping about similar features on the EEE PCs...

Granted the EEE's support a few more gestures, but basic functionality is comparable imo. My Synaptic touchpad has the pinch/stretch functionality you mentioned for zooming in/out, the standard horiz/vert scrolling zones, and a nifty circular scrolling feature that's useful for long docs. The EEE PC's have no scrolling zones and a two-finger scroll gesture instead, along with a two or three finger task/app switching gesture I think.