The article on the left is about 12 months old and is already ancient history. While many things in the piece are still true, so much has changed as to make the accuracies almost irrelevant.

Many new tablets are available directly from China, Europe, Asia, and the US, not to mention South Korea. While most of the manufacturers listed are still in business, some are not, and some are on the edge. While most of the new machines are in smaller format than a 10″ surface, the price break is significant. That said, many of the initial competitors to the iPad are still competitive machines today in all but price.

Although the low end market is flourishing, innovation in the larger screen tablets is almost non-existent. Touch screen monitors are available in 20 inch models and larger. The main reason these screens haven’t made it into tablets is the power requirements. Even with a significant battery, you probably would not be able to get very far from a power plug. But as presentation machines they would be spectacular! Most of the hardware for the guts of a tablet can be gotten from Hardkernel. They produce a line of ODROID motherboards that will run both Android and Linux. This is where I’ve started for a large format desktop tablet.

As to the companies that made it and those that didn’t: Notion Ink has an “under construction” web site that is almost a year old. Several large companies that I will not name have jumped into the market only to fall on their face in failure. On the other hand, Samsung has taken the lead from Motorola in both tablets and smart phones, while Asus and Sony are having success with their new tablet products. Ainol is still in business but has been joined by several competitors.

This is still an “emerging” technology, and I expect to see many more changes ahead. I’m still hoping for a large format “desktop” tablet that will run multiple Operating Systems, so I’ll just put that out there as my default prediction. I’m also waiting for a hand tracking interface that could read American Sign Language or at least a pigeon thereof. I’ll come back in a year and see how its going…