Late last week I talked a bit about Synaptics’ smartphone touch technology, but today’s announcements apply to their role in the notebook space. Today Synaptics is announcing two new technologies: a pressure sensitive trackpad, and an ultrathin capacitive touch keyboard with mechanical keys. Both technologies are aimed at making notebooks even thinner, which helps explain their introduction prior to the arrival of Haswell Ultrabooks. As a recap, Synaptics and its competitors provide touch controllers to OEMs for use in their notebook trackpads. Its the combination of hardware, firmware and software that can make or break the experience. Currently most Ultrabooks use a top-hinged clickpad, where the entire tracking surface acts as a physical button. Since the clickpad has a hinge at the top, you...