[kevkrom]

I've seen touch screens in kiosks, hospitals, and professional office buildings for more than a decade, all running a flavor of Windows or 'nix. Having a touchscreen, or running without a keyboard and mouse, is nothing new

True, but the newer generation of devices have a few things going for them:

1) The touch screens are not intended to simulate mouse input, but to completely change interaction with the device (multi-touch and gestures, specifically)

2) The idea of making a tablet that's just like a PC, only portable, is gone. Tablets are more focused devices now -- the ones that try to be general-purpose computers are the ones that are failing.

[so_real]

Multi-touch and gestures are, I believe, available in Windows, Mac, and Ubuntu. My impression is that a tablet is nothing more than an ultra-portable PC. The iPad, for instance, has options for a docking station, external keyboard, and full size monitor. What is that if not a PC wannabe? The tablets that tried, and failed, to be a general purpose computer lacked hardware up to the task. The hardware is catching up, though. With only 1GB of RAM and a 1GHz single core processor, the Toshiba Thrive won't be a general purpose PC either. But when you double those specs ... Windows XP would run quite well on it. And with a full suite of stable Windows apps already available with everything needed to communicate, consume, and actually perform work -- why waste the effort furthering these "panel" operating systems and trying to port the world's apps to them?