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When people ask me what the future holds for netbooks, a few things jump to mind: faster processors, longer battery life, a continued blurring of the lines between full sized laptops and mini-laptops in terms of price and performance. But one of the other majro trends that’s developing in 2009 is the launch of touchscreen netbooks. Asus and Gigabyte have already announced touchscreen models, and the Intel Classmate 3 reference design has an 8.9 inch touchscreen.

In another sign that demand for netbooks with touchscreens is rising, DigiTimes reports that Taiwan’s Young Fast Optoelectronics is the latest company to start producing touch panels for netbooks. The company is expected to ramp up production of netbook screens during the second half of 2009. Young Fast is reportedly working with netbook vendors that will use the display in upcoming laptops.

The company’s touch screens are capacitive displays, which cost more than resistive touchscreens. But capacitive touch displays can support multitouch, which should become important when Microsoft introduced Windows 7 which will include greater support for multititouch gestures.