HP TouchPad screen can now support Android

The HP TouchPad is now capable of running Android with full use of the touch screen, thanks to the technical team at TouchDroid.

Hard at work porting Android over to HP's discontinued but much-in-demand tablet, the TouchDroid techs were able to create the necessary drivers to coax Android 2.3.5 to run on the TouchPad and let people tap into the touch screen.

Unveiling a video (also seen below) showing off the team's progress, a TouchDroid developer demonstrated how he could fluidly and smoothly tap and move his finger around a TouchPad running Android with no delays or skips. He even demoed Android's multitouch feature, moving five fingers and then ten fingers across the screen.

Though TouchDroid is currently using Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread on its demo tablet, its ultimate goal is to support the current flavor of Honeycomb or even the upcoming Ice Cream Sandwich on a TouchPad. The team seems to be making quick progress as a little more than two weeks ago, its developers were still trying to drum up a TouchPad that they could use for testing.

The latest development also follows a conflict among some of TouchDroid's members over soliciting money to buy TouchPads, an issue that actually split the group into two teams now working separately.

In addition to TouchDroid, another group called CyanogenMod is striving to port Android to the HP tablet. As of late August, the CyanogenMod team had succeeded in running Android on the TouchPad but had yet to build support for the touch-screen drivers.

HP's TouchPad has been a hot commodity since the company announced a few weeks ago that it was pulling the plug on the tablet. To sell off existing inventory, HP lowered the price to $99 for the 16GB version and $149 for the 32GB model, from $499 and $599, respectively. That fire sale ignited a flurry of buyers, causing HP and other retailers to quickly run out of available stock.

Source: cnet.com