Elanso

The touch user interface is slowly creeping into every relevant gadget and Panasonic is getting into the game by releasing a touchscreen-operated point-and-shoot camera today. The Panasonic LUMIX FX500 will feature a 3-inch LCD touch UI allowing you to touch-adjust aperture and shutter settings, and even set the focus and exposure frames in the middle of a recording.

There's also a new Easy Organization feature where you organize your pictures by touching a picture thumbnail to select, and then an onscreen keyboard pops up so that you can title each picture. That is much better than waiting after upload them to the PC.

But Panasonic didn't go completely naked into the touchscreen-only night, like Apple did with the iPhone. Instead, they hedged their bets by mixing in a regular joystick and an odd, key-like stylus that’s begging to be lost. Maybe next time they'll have the courage to go the full monty.

The FX500 will also feature the latest 25mm ultra-wide angle Leica DC lens, go up to a 5x optical zoom set, and stays at the 10.1-megapixel level of the other top-line cams.

It will also record HD video at 1280 x 720p and HD stills with a 16:9 aspect ratio. In addition, there's Auto Focus (AF) tracking, a burst shooting mode high at 6 frames/sec, and a full-resolution burst mode at 2.5 frames/sec.

The camera is scheduled to come out (in black and silver models) around the middle of May, for $400.

So that’s 'the touch' in another gadget. Not quite the same as the touch leader, but it is another mark on the way to the feature's ubiquity. Even if it's not true that every gadget needs the touch, manufacturers have psyched themselves out into believing this is so.

In the words of the late Johnnie Cochran, “If it doesn't have touch, the other gadgets will eat it for lunch. I'm not exaggerating much -- wait, hear that crunch? That's your non-touch gadget young man.”