The Tech Museum of Innovation, in San Jose, California, has announced the winners of its UCanTu virtual exhibit competition -- but are they real or virtual? The museum says the exhibits benefit humanity and will be displayed in the virtual museum in Second Life and at the physical museum in California.

Tech Virtual exhibits encompassed health, education, environment, economic development and equality, and were based on past award winners in the real world. The winning projects involved creating solar boats and human-powered irrigation systems.

The Tech Museum calls the virtual exhibits part of an open source venture, though it's unclear what makes them open source. Cool to see what museums can do online.

In June, I wrote about new touch pad "gestures" such as momentum from Synaptics.

The company recently rolled out these upgrades in touch pads, which are coming from various laptop manufacturers.

One new gesture is called a pinch, in which you bring two fingers away from each other or closer depending on which direction you want your article or spreadsheet to move.

We may now find ourselves using a two-finger flick or a pinch rather a simple scroll. Check out this demo of a two-finger flick:

Too bad I still have my optical mouse attached to my laptop...