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Microsoft details the Touch Mouse's upcoming support for Windows 8 gestures
We already knew that Microsoft would be upgrading its Touch Mouse to support Windows 8 gestures, but the outfit never confirmed which finger movements, exactly, would be built in. Now, Redmond is explaining it all, even though the mouse won't actually get updated until Win8 goes on sale in late October. According to the company, you'll be able to swipe two fingers to the right to toggle between open programs, and two to the left to expose those Charms. Sliding three fingers up and down will allow you to use Semantic Zoom. (Naturally, you'll be able to swipe from side to side to move through the tiles on your Start screen, but you probably already guessed that.) We have a Touch Mouse here at Engadget HQ that we're just itching to update, but until those drivers drop three months from now, it seems we'll just have to find something else to keep us entertained.
Intel refreshes Wireless Display with support for DRM-protected DVDs, Blu-rays
We were bowled over from the start by Intel's Wireless Display technology, which lets you stream HD content from select laptops to an HDTV (with the help of a small adapter, of course). But while WiDi's been good for watching The Colbert Report on Hulu and streaming flicks stored on your hard drive, it hasn't played so nice with DVDs and Blu-rays. At last, though, Intel is supporting HDCP-protected discs (along with some online content) through a free driver update. One catch: it only applies to Sandy Bridge laptops, which just started shipping this spring. If your notebook's a few months too old, well, using an HDMI cable isn't the worst consolation prize.
Razer Naga now supports key mapping
As previously mentioned in our lengthy review of the Razer Naga, Razer had plans to update their 17-button MMOG-centric mouse to enable key mapping. Heathcliff Hatcher from Razer responded to concerns about the mouse's configurability back then that "software driver remapping of keys is a standard function for most of Razer products and we do have suitable solutions that we intend to release in the near future for Naga that will enable this feature out of game." Razer delivered on that promise with an update to the mouse driver, allowing users to configure all 17 buttons. This addresses the reservations many players expressed when the product launched in August last year. The driver update also supports different profiles, allowing users to configure different key functions according to their current application. Razer has also added full macro capability including timed delays between keystrokes. However, it should be noted that taking advantage of this last function might violate the World of Warcraft's terms of use, something that plagued the first versions of Steelseries' World of Warcraft mouse. Read the FAQ regarding the driver update after the break.
Creative rolls out (working) driver update for X-Fi cards
While at least one enterprising individual did his best to get Creative's X-Fi sound cards to play nice with Vista, Creative wasn't exactly keen on that idea and apparently decided to have a go at updating its drivers itself instead (go figure). Among other things, the new, long overdue drivers supposedly fix the problematic Dolby Digital and DTS decoding, and they add DVD Audio playback, which previously worked under Windows XP but not in Vista -- you know, the little things. Hit up the link below to find the link to the drivers themselves, which work with all X-Fi cards except the X-Fi Extreme Audio, which is clearly so "Extreme" it doesn't need driver updates.[Thanks, Bamboo]
