Gates defends PC at Comdex, unveils new tablet – there’s a video that shows the tablet pc in action. it’s pretty neat… it will be crusoe powered.
that whole /. thread spins off a whole buncha interesting tangents. one is about the naturality of pen input (hmm, intuitive vs familiar probably comes into play). also, there’s a point that the tabletpc uses the pen not because it’s more natural, but because it’s more convenient. “You can write a lot of stuff with one hand — one hand holding the tablet, and one hand holding the pen, while walking around.” – that’s the main reason for the success of pen input and the pda imo.
ibm’s almaden research center is working on a project called blueeyes that observes and responds to a user’s facial expressions, eye movements and vocal cues… pretty neat.