Microsoft announced today a prototype for the first tablet by a big league company. The tablet has caused a cyclone through the blogoworld this summer and almost everyone in the computer and internet industry has some sort of rumor or another to spread about it. Basically the tablet is going to be a cross between an iphone and a laptop. It is most definitely going to be entirely touch enabled. They are going to be made almost entirely for internet use and will most likely offer the app store model that apple issued with the iPhone. Before the announcement of Microsoft's prototype everyone was expecting a model that was to look almost like a bigger iPhone, or ipod touch maybe. They are surely going to be keyboardless and more compact than laptops. They are going to be made with reading the internet in mind and will most likely send the Kindle out of business because it will be just as easy to read books on them too. All indication points to them radically changing how we browse the internet.

 Mostly everyone has been waiting for Apple's big announcement for their tablet. Reportedly Steve Jobs has more than once rejected the plans for Apple's tablet, he is waiting for perfection. Microsoft's choice to announce a prototype is a risky move and I don't know if it will play out. It's most likely that when apple announces theirs it will be packaged and ready to ship in a matter of weeks. But nonetheless Microsoft has surprised everybody with their hardware. Their version of the tablet is basically a book with screen pages. You open it up to two separate screens. It comes with a pen which you use right on the interface. There are apps like the iPhone and it is possible to for example, pick something on one screen, drag it to the other with your fingers and look at it over there without changing the first screen. Really cool design which I think should have everyone throwing out their preconceptions that apple's will just be a giant iPhone.

Anyways, I wonder what you all think of tablets. Do you see how they might overhaul our computer system as we know it? Do you think they will or might they stand a chance of flopping upon release? I don't think they are necessarily an end point for the browsing of the internet, but I can see how they are about to optimize personal use of the internet. What kind of system these companies are setting up though I'm not sure. It's definite they don't want the tablet to replace the computer. The same companies that sell you a tablet still want you to buy their phones, their music players (microsoft just released their version of iPod touch), and their computers. What are their plans exactly? Do you think they are just trying to dupe us into buying as many almost-similar items of theirs they can? Is there no end? After the tablet will it just be the question of what piece of technology are they going to try and make us think we need next? It is almost unfathomable that they can go anywhere else without violating anti-trust laws. Television seems like the next step actually. I bet they are going to let tablets settle in among the public in 2010 and then make 2011 the year of the television. What next? Cars? Flying cars? Is this  excess or just the next logical jump in technology? I guess we might just have to wait and see...