Week in review: Displax turns any surface into touchscreens, Facebook launches redesign

Here’s our rundown of the week’s business and tech news. First, the most popular stories VentureBeat published in the last seven days:
Displax plastic film can turn any surface into a touchscreen — Displax revealed a new plastic film with multitouch sensing. It can be placed over any display or even non-display surfaces, making them into interactive devices. If the film works as billed, it could become an easy way to retrofit passive surfaces — glass, plastic or wood — so that they become interactive.
Engadget editor: Why I turned off comments — Gearhead megasite Engadget, which attracts millions of readers every month, sometimes millions in a single day, disabled comments on its posts earlier this week. We interviewed Engadget editor in chief Joshua Topolsky about the decision, which he said was a response to a barrage of “trollish” comments in the wake of Engadget’s extensive iPad-related coverage.
Why iPad will sell despite “missing” features — Since Apple announced its forthcoming iPad tablet device, there’s been quite a bit of banter about its shortcomings. The device has no camera, no phone, no Flash support, and doesn’t allow multitasking, just to name a few of the issues. But writer Saad Fazil reminds us that this is exactly how the company launched the iPod Touch.
Siri launches an iPhone personal assistant that actually works — The “personal assistant” label gets attached to a lot of websites and applications, but it’s always an exaggeration. A new iPhone application called Siri has limitations too, but I argued that it’s already further along than the competition, and it has the potential to become a true personal assistant.
Stephen Colbert shows off an iPad at the Grammy’s (video) — Apple always gets an leg up on its competitors with the glamour factor of its products. The process is starting already with the iPad. At the 52nd annual Grammy Awards tonight, Stephen Colbert whipped an iPad out of his coat pocket (must have been a big pocket!) while on stage giving an award for Song of the Year.
And here are five more stories we thought were important, thought-provoking, or fun:
Live-blog: A rundown on Facebook’s new redesign — Facebook rolled out a redesign to 80 million users on Thursday night. We reported from the Facebook offices as the company explained the changes.
BioWare’s Mass Effect 2 is one of the first great games of 2010 — Dean Takahashi declared that the new game is a masterpiece of storytelling. The game’s success should help BioWare’s owner, Electronic Arts, dig itself out of a hole of losses and bad bets made on original titles.
Apple’s A4 chip: Engineers correct stupid journalist — The “stupid journalist” in question is VentureBeat writer Paul Boutin, who asked readers to explain how Apple’s switch from third-party chip manufacturers to its own in-house design makes the iPad better, either for Apple or for iPad customers. Former Apple employee Prabhakar Kotla responded with an impressive 10-part answer.
Glam raises $50M at whopping value of $750M, prepares IPO — Glam Media, the fast-growing online media company catering to mostly women, has raised another $50 million from investors. More impressively, the company is now valued at $750 million by its investors.
San Francisco to funnel $171M into green transit center — San Francisco has long had plans to extend the Bay Area’s Caltrain line into the heart of its Financial District. Now, recent designs show that the transit facility could be extremely (and uniquely) green — which makes it even better news that the project landed a $171 million loan from the federal government under the banner of the Transportation Infrastructure and Innovation Act.