the man behind the multitouch screen

If you're like me, then you were glued to the election coverage on any of the major news networks broadcasting on Tuesday night, and you saw the big star of this historic election season. No, not Barack Obama. I'm talking about the multitouch electronic wall map. Bringing you the state-by-state breakdown with pretty colors and moving graphics. Oooooh.

The guy responsible for all this graphical goodness? Tech entrepreneur Jeff Han and his company Perceptive Pixel, whose multitouch system has no doubt made this election season a lot more fun for those TV news guys, with all the zooming and coloring and stuff: Election a win for multitouch inventor.

The gadget has been a big hit since it launched at the TED conference a few years ago, and has since been adopted by a number of news networks, including CNN, Fox and ABC News. Unlike traditional touch screens, the technology allows you to use more than one finger—or the fingers of multiple users—at a time.

All this time, I just thought it was an oversized iPhone. You know you've hit the big time when you're getting spoofed by Fred Armisen on Saturday Night Live. Han apparently equipped, trained and collaborated with SNL for the skit.