I generally agree, but I still found it useful simply for up/down scrolling while reading an ebook or news articles while on the couch. Basically when I don't need to use the keyboard at all for an extended period of time.
I can hold the laptop differently in that case, using it more like a tablet. I did this often enough where I was happy I got a touchscreen...
Just think how different it could have been had this approach been feasible a decade or two ago. I believe it would have been, however, nobody had thought of it.
Had that route been taken then by now it would be a mature technology with most laptops having some bulge around the web camera to turn it from touch mode to web cam mode or to privacy mode.
It could have co-existed alongside expensive touch much like how other hardware gets emulated in software if the full hardware is not present. By now the device could have slimmed down to use some magic piece of mylar film that folds flat when the lid is closed but magically springs out to capture the whole screen.
But this is a tech that is too late to the party, touchscreen is not going to have a lame cut down version that works off a webcam, however, had this idea come along and been viable two decades ago then things could have been different, it could have been a tech that lasts for a while before being superseded.
I do wonder at the PIN number stealing scam applications of this and if there is something we will all have to look out for in terms of really sneaky camera on ATM machines.
