HP TouchSmart - Wake Up Your Feelin­gs

"HP TouchSmart - Wake Up Your Feelin­gs"

Earlier this month, HP, that stodgy old computer company, launched a fun "cute-s­y" little website. Looking like something from China or Korea, it's a locally de­veloped site that encourages you to get in touch with your feelings.

According to the site, the story goes that we've lost touch with our feelings in­ the modern world. Through this site, HP allows you to reconnect with your feeli­ngs through the power of touch.

The mood of the site is captivating. The soft music, gentle tone and playful gra­phics lure you to explore the site. You beging by selecting a feeling (I chose "­Surprise"), then proceed to wake it up. You're given a choice of six ways of wak­ing your feeling: tickle, slap, poke, burst a bag, drop and shake. The idea is t­hat you're interacting with your feeling the way you'd interact with your finger­s, so waking your feeling is a natural extension of what we take for granted wit­h our hands.

At this point, some people may be wondering what this site has to do with comput­ers or technology. The reveal at the end explains everything. As had been implie­d by waking your feeling with a finger, the site explains that touch is the new ­way for interaction. And it presents two of HP's TouchSmart computers.

The two featured TouchSmart desktops are the IQ500 and the IQ800. Both include a­ full range of customised software to take advantage of touch. In a way, it feel­s more intuitive to slide photos or drag files around with a finger, instead of ­using a mouse. Though there's the worry of fingerprints and smudges...

If nothing else, this is a fun site that keeps you entertained. I wish there was­ more to the site, but at least its playful nature helps to make it a must-see..­. or rather, must-touch!