Asus unveils dual-panel concept laptop

An interesting Asus concept has been spotted at the CeBIT 2009 tech show in Hannover -- a laptop with two displays, instead of a traditional screen and keyboard.

The company said it's "a revolutionary dual-panel concept notebook", and the design was inspired by "ideas contributed from users from around the world".

Using the WePC.com Web site, people can submit and discuss ideas for innovative laptops. Many of the submitted ideas seem to revolve around multiple displays in a single unit.

Asus' concept represents an attempt to bring one of these crowd-sourced ideas to life, but the company said that "the concept is still a work in progress which requires continued feedback".

"The dual panel offers a flexible working space which users can adapt to suit their prevailing usage scenarios, for example, adjusting the size of the virtual touchpad and keyboard," states Asus on its Web site.

"Through hand gestures, handwriting recognition, and multitouch, users are presented with a control surface that is both flexible and intuitive. Users can use the dual-panel concept in a myriad of usage scenario -- for example, as a conventional notebook with multitouch screens, a virtual keyboard and touchpad; a multimedia hub, in which both dual panels could combine to form a larger display for widescreen entertainment; or an e-book mode in which users can hold the dual-panel concept notebook just like they would a conventional book, while flipping pages through intuitive gestures or by touch," the company said.