Researchers have developed the first computer display that is both flexible and touch sensitive. They say that the breakthrough could lead to more practical and easier-to-use portable devices.

Over the past few years, there has been a drive to develop displays that more closely mimic the properties of paper.

E Ink, based in Cambridge, MA, already supplies displays that are easy to read in direct sunlight and require little power for both the Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader, compared to LCDs and plasma screens. E Ink’s technology uses a layer of microcapsules filled with submicrometer black and white particles to create a low-power, reflective screen.

Ultimately, though, the goal is to make displays that are not only flexible, but that also respond to touch. The first flexible electronic-paper product, the Readius, is due to launch later this year. This electronic reader features a roll-out E Ink display made by Polymer Vision, based in the Netherlands.

If you thought Mosaic was the first graphical Web browser, think again. In their first major interview, three of the four Finnish software engineers behind Erwise — a point-and-click graphical Web browser for the X Window system — describe the creation of their program in 1991-1992, a full year before Marc Andreessen’s Mosaic (which, of course, evolved into Netscape).

Kim Nyberg, Kari Sydänmaanlakka, and Teemu Rantanen, with their fellow Helsinki University of Technology student Kati Borgers (nee Suominen), gave Erwise features such as text searching and the ability to load multiple Web pages that wouldn’t be seen in other browsers until much later.

The three engineers, who today work for the architectural software firm Tekla, say they never commercialized the project because there was no financing — Finland was in a deep recession at the time and lacked a strong venture capital or angel investing market. Otherwise, the Web revolution might have begun a year earlier

A California lawmaker wants to force Internet mapping services to blur detailed images of schools, hospitals, churches and all government buildings, reviving a debate over whether such images can assist terrorists.

Assemblyman Joel Anderson, a San Diego-area Republican, said he decided to introduce his bill after reading that terrorists who plotted attacks in Israel and India used popular services such as Google Earth and Microsoft’s Virtual Earth.

But even if his bill becomes law, it might be difficult to prohibit Google Inc., Microsoft Corp. and other mapping companies from posting such photographs. That’s because those images already are public and often are posted on the institution’s own Web site.

“Just taking a picture of a building is not a threat because these images have been available for decades,” said Simon Davies, president of London-based Privacy International, which has been critical of Google for taking photographs without consent.

DirecTV Group Inc. said Tuesday that it’s open to giving subscribers exclusive online access to television shows such as HBO’s “Entourage” that are normally not available for free over the Internet, agreeing with a growing consortium of cable companies and networks.

Web content should be an extension of a customer’s satellite TV viewing experience, not a competing platform, Chief Executive Chase Carey said at the Deutsche Bank Securities Media and Telecommunications Conference.

The rising popularity of online video should be embraced instead of rejected, he said.

“In the past, when a company tries to stop or block something from happening, it’s usually failed,” Carey said.