Oh what I would give to play with this for a few hours let alone own this whopping 24″ screen bad boy. Alas at a nearly $4,000 price tag I will probably not get that chance unless I miraculously win the lottery.

Last week, Korean graphics tablet maker Wacom announced an addition to their superwide interactive display line, Cintiq, and yep–it’s a doozy. The 24” HD Touch is similar to the version released just a few months ago, with one crucial upgrade: multi-touch controls.

In a press release, the company’s professional products director explains the main advantage of touch–“the ability to manipulate a 3-D model or pan, zoom and rotate an image with one hand while simultaneously sculpting or sketching with the other.” The 24-inch, 1.07 billion color screen is mounted on a rotating stand that swivels easily to move from upright to tabletop, and comes with a newly upgraded battery-less pen. It’s a more immersive drawing experience, which Wacom claims will close the gap between analog and digital creativity.

Besides looking painfully fun to draw with, the Touch provokes some interesting questions regarding graphic software development. Obviously, Adobe, Autodesk, CorelPaint and other software were originally developed for hotkeys and a mouse. Swipes and multi-finger touching will open up a whole new type of control system.

Multi-touch functionality comes at a cost ($3,699) though, so you may be destined to hunch furtively over a 10” Wacom for a few more years. More likely, it’ll be your boss swiveling and swiping to their hearts content, as demonstrated by the distinguished-looking gentleman in the video above. Still, technology trickles down, and it’s exciting to see Wacom venturing into touchable territory.

More information here.

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