We touch the spot on our shirt where the ink has seeped.

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The more people who touch and visit a spot, the more germs there are in the mix, they say.

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The plastic bezel on the front provides a nice spot on which to deposit one's thumb and, like the Simple Touch, provides for a design that stands apart from the army of lookalike tablets that dominate the market.

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His track record, of course, has been mixed: In 2002, for instance, Gates premiered the Mira, the portable touch screen, which never launched, and SPOT, an ambitious plan to beam weather and stock quotes to wristwatches.

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When spot-welding, for instance, a robot has to touch the metal with an electrode.

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That spot may be especially timely given renewed criticism of the MyFord Touch infotainment platform by the influential Consumer Reports magazine.

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Another prototype from DoCoMo aimed at Nihon's commuters, the i beam concept tablet forgoes any touch at all, allowing the user (once they're at the specified 'sweet spot') to navigate around apps and screens using your eyes.

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We really enjoyed being able to slide a scrub bar with our finger to find just the spot we were looking for, and this was one of the things the touch screen remote can truly do better than its hard button cousin.

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The idea is the car could drive itself down the street, find a parking spot and tuck itself in there -- and then return to you at the touch of a button.

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