Something cool and sleek and positively 21st century has caught our attention recently: the digital tablet. The concept is simple: the functions and portability of a laptop, the in-hand feel of paper and pen, and the freedom of wireless. Soon you will be able to carry around a magic slate, checking out your favorite recipes from Epicurious while you cook, making hand-written notes directly onto the screen. Junior, armed with his own magic slate, can be downloading the latest game cheats in his room, while sis uses hers to read email from the backyard.
 IDEO, the hardware design firm of record, responsible for the Palm V and the Visor, recently conceptualized a portable "webslate" for Transmeta Corp. to show off its low-voltage, Linux-ready, Crusoe chip. Webslate's high-resolution, eight-inch touch screen will let you view Web pages and DVD movies without having to rely on the "impoverished display" of a PDA. The slim slate is designed to accommodate plug-in modules on any of its four sides -- including a camera for video conferencing, a GPS module for navigation, audio speakers and controls for digital music, and modules for Net gaming.
For those of you annoyed by the clacking of keyboards during meetings (second only to cell phone calls in restaurants), Microsoft's proto-hype Tablet PC may be the answer. The Tablet will combine the functionality of pagers, laptops, cell phones and PDAs into one unit, but wireless digital ink is the core innovation. The note-taking application on the Tablet PC will allegedly let you take notes by hand, manipulate them, move, highlight, save, search and sort your notes or the marginal scribble you make to screen text. Advances in key technologies such as handwriting recognition, battery life, display resolution, wireless networking and memory are all improving, making such devices as the PC Tablet possible.
Intel's answer to Microsoft is the Web Tablet, a lightweight high performance device that will give your family wireless Internet access beside the pool or at the breakfast table. Intel's market anthropologists found that the PC's location in the home -- the den or home office -- was out of sync with the free flow of today's family life. Using the AnyPoint Home Network (wireless or phone line systems available), the Web Tablet is designed to share the same Internet connections as your home PC, so family members can surf on Tablets and the PC at the same time without coming to blows over line-time. Use a Pentium 4-based system as your desktop PC/home server, hook yourself up to a high-speed Net connection, and the whole family will be able to climb into cyberspace whenever and wherever they want.
Internet appliance designers will admit (off the record) that they don't have a clue what technologies will end up in consumers' homes. Their philosophy is to throw anything and everything up against the wall to see what sticks. As a result, we have Web phones, refrigerators with IP addresses and microwaves with Web browsers on their doors. You don't have to be the sharpest tool in the shed to know that hardwiring today's computer (which is almost an antique by the time it's finished rolling off the assembly line) onto the front of your new Amana is probably not the smartest idea. We're casting our vote for the wireless Web tablet to become the ubiquitous digital home appliance of the near future.
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