oh, *touchpad*, for a second I thought it was the screen, must be something to do with the spin in that headline!

I know what gesture I'll be giving this then..

Surely it's the driver that's performing the feat meaning that any touchpad should be able to perform these features as long as someone cares to write support for for these "oh so wonderful" features?

Most older touch pads have a dedicated chip giving a PS/2 output... which did not provide this feature. The newer ones have a more useful chip for scanning across the pad and give the correct interface. However never let a good laptop manufacturer use quality / well designed components over cheap mass produced ones, as that might produce something really useful.