I want to post a longer and more detailed post in a few days, but at a high level, this is a TI Pandaboard (dual core 1GHz, 1GB RAM) running Gingerbread attached to a Quanta touchpanel (the Acer T230H in this case). The monitor costs around $330, the pandaboard around $175 and you'll need a few other things like a power adapter etc.
The setup is a bit laggy in parts for different reasons. Google earth shows a lot of IO errors, while the launcher just wasn't made to push that many pixels around - taking the resolution down gets rid of it. On the other hand, once the GPU takes over in Fruit Ninja, everything works fine and is actually quite a lot of fun.
Like I mentioned in the post, the size of this thing makes simultaneous use by 2 people practical - Fruit Ninja is a lot of fun with 2 people and games like Flight Control will work very well too.
About 1.5 years ago did a college project with one of these things. Is the Quanta touchpanel an optical one? Are there
lenses in each of the top corners?
If so, we had a similar screen. We had to get it to work with Linux, which back then was a tough due to kernel not quite having driver support (believe it's included since kernel 2.8.32, partially in .31) It's not true multitouch because somewhere halfway the infrared cameras can get confused, so you can't really use more than two points, though sometimes you can use 4. Benefits are however that you don't have to actually touch the screen but can hover slightly over it.
For the project we deployed a location tracking system on it, using a custom Open Street Maps OpenGL app with markers, manipulated using the multitouch.
How about for textbooks or schoolbooks? This is at a size that I could actually see myself using it, if it were something I could lay flat on a desk. It would even be practical for taking notes, I think.
US multi-touch has been enabled for a couple of years now. I don't know the specifics, I imagine more cronyistic backroom patent deals that typify our broken patent system.
The setup is a bit laggy in parts for different reasons. Google earth shows a lot of IO errors, while the launcher just wasn't made to push that many pixels around - taking the resolution down gets rid of it. On the other hand, once the GPU takes over in Fruit Ninja, everything works fine and is actually quite a lot of fun.
Like I mentioned in the post, the size of this thing makes simultaneous use by 2 people practical - Fruit Ninja is a lot of fun with 2 people and games like Flight Control will work very well too.