HP 311 touchpad not recognised

I have the HP mini 311 which has a touchpad (I believe it is an ALPS) that is not recognised as a touchpad but shows up as a geneic PS/2 mouse. Since it appears as a generic mouse it isn't possible to configure the touchpad features such as disabling the touchpad when typing. The problem is present in Karmic, but I tried the alpha3 of lucid and the same problem exists there.

In /proc/bus/input/devices I see the followin two devies

I: Bus=0011 Vendor=0002 Product=0005 Version=0000
N: Name="ImPS/2 Generic Wheel Mouse"
P: Phys=isa0060/serio1/input0
S: Sysfs=/devices/platform/i8042/serio1/input/input9
U: Uniq=
H: Handlers=mouse1 event9
B: EV=7
B: KEY=70000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
B: REL=103

I: Bus=0017 Vendor=0001 Product=0001 Version=0100
N: Name="Macintosh mouse button emulation"
P: Phys=
S: Sysfs=/devices/virtual/input/input4
U: Uniq=
H: Handlers=mouse0 event4
B: EV=7
B: KEY=70000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
B: REL=3

but tpconfig gives the following information
sudo tpconfig -i
Found Synaptics Touchpad.
Firmware: 8.96 (multiple-byte mode).
Sensor type: unknown (0).
Geometry: rectangular/landscape/up.
Packets: absolute, 80 packets per second.
Corner taps disabled; no tap gestures.
Edge motion: none.
Z threshold: 6 of 7.
2 button mode; corner tap is right button click.