9to5 Mac has a new Apple rumor hot on the heels of their successful iPod Nano tip - their sources claim a new 'slim' MacBook is getting very close to being ready for a huge release. Word is the things have aluminum casings, come in both silver and black, are slimmer than even the current MacBook Pros and should have a smaller footprint, have keyboards that are just like the new wireless desktop variety, and are lighter.

Most interesting to me is two other rumors about the device: aggressively priced and 'something strange' about the touchpad. Aggressively priced is important. Apple has been seeing huge gains in its notebook share industry-wide, perhaps using some of their iPhone price-cut logic, Apple could be trying to keep their foot on the pedal and pricing these things so they are at or around similarly-spec'd PC laptops. With all things being equal (meaning price), Apple wins hands down. Who wouldn't want to own an Apple laptop if it costs the same as say an HP? Not too many people.

The 'special' touchpad has to mean one thing: multi-touch - it just makes too much sense for it to be anything else. If Apple can simply utilize the same technology they have in place on the iPhone, but on a laptop trackpad, it will be huge. Imagine zooming in on picture in iPhoto by simply spreading two fingers apart on the trackpad. Zooming into something by double-tapping. Scrolling through your album covers in iTunes by swiping your finger across the pad.

They already have something somewhat similar in place for the laptops they've released in the past couple of years with the two-finger scroll (when you have two fingers on the trackpad, it will do a scrolling function rather then just moving the mouse cursor) and it's one of the most underrated features about the device.

The end-game with Multi-touch is to have you control your content by using simple gestures right on the screen itself (like the iPhone, but to a much larger extent - watch the video), getting it on the trackpad will be a nice first step for laptops.