Apple announcing Tablet on Wednesday

Long rumored new Apple product - a tablet device, based on success of iPhone and Touch line is about to be revealed this Wednesday, Apple has invited selected reporters to this event. http://bit.ly/7o5hga (news articles about Apple Tablet are appearing by minute)

Microsoft is also cooking a tablet device - currently there are just rumors about it.

If this device gains momentum and attract publicity, computing may change significantly with web alongside. We may all shed off keyboard as major input method and have information tool very similar to writing pad (thus replacing pen and paper) and as well act as reading/display pad. Similar touch devices has been produced by HP earlier (2008/2009) in laptop and desktop fashion but did not get lot of media attention. They have been based on pen and touch screen and run on Vista with pen extensions. Touch/pen pointing devices are heavily used in industry and medical applications for data input, but there was no general computer tablet that would work in iPhone/HTC fashion and have larger screen real-estate than a mobile device. From this Wednesday we will get a glimpse of possible future of computing. I forecast hot debates about usability of touch approach.