December 24 - 12:05pm EST   Axiotron, developer of the Modbook tablet conversion, has announced plans to debut new software at January's Macworld Expo. The company will be showing off Quickscript, special handwriting recognition code developed with the help of Vision Objects. Whereas the Modbook's touch functions have traditionally been aimed at illustrators, photographers and graphic designers, Quickscript should enable more general functions by substituting for typing. [full story]

October 28 - 9:40pm EDT   Axiotron has announced a new program that will convert customers' MacBook computers into pen-based Modbook tablet devices. The company had previously only transformed brand new base systems into Modbooks. The tablets feature "digitizer" technology that allows drawing and writing on the device while controlling the Mac OS X operating system environment without a mouse or keyboard. Other features include handwriting recognition and an integrated GPS module. [full story]

May 15 - 10:20am EDT   Intel is now denying any suggestion that an Atom-based tablet is in development by Apple, according to reports. Intel spokesman Mike Cato is quoted as saying that comments by German chief Hannes Schwaderer were misinterpreted; instead, says Cato, Intel merely believes that the iPhone is representative of a new kind of platform it is marketing, called the Mobile Internet Device (MID). The Atom is expected to form the heart of many MIDs, among other products, but there are no current plans to put an Atom CPU in a tablet, phone or any other piece of electronics made by Apple. [full story]

March 25 - 4:15pm EDT   New lawsuits have been filed by Typhoon Touch Technologies against the makers of tablet PCs, accounts say. The company first gained attention in December of last year, when it accused prominent computer builders Dell and Motion Computing of violating patents used not only in tablets, but also in smartphones and UMPCs. The new suits are targeted exclusively at makers of tablet PCs though, and name Electrovaya, Xplore Technologies and Sand Dune Ventures (a.k.a. TabletKiosk) as the defendants. [full story]

February 5 - 3:20pm EST   Cellphone maker HTC may be working on a previously unheard-of kind of tablet device, a Portugese site claims. Dubbed the "Magnum," the prototype tablet is distinguished by an oversized OLED touchscreen, larger than any currently on the market. It is also said to have an 80GB hard drive and 2GB of ROM, and operate using a 800MHz Marvell processor, 512MB of RAM, and a 128MB AMD graphics processor. The accounts have engendered considerable media skepticism however, due to an incongruous feature set. Despite the size of the screen, it only supports 65,000 colors, and the system's overall battery life is said to be 30 hours -- as long as the much smaller iPod classic, ... [full story]

December 3 - 9:25am EST   Wacom today greatly expanded its Cintiq tablet displays with its first widescreen models and also its first screens in the US smaller than 21 inches. The 20WSX is claimed as the world's only 20-inch widescreen stylus display and matches the same 1680x1050 resolution as a view-only LCD while still offering the same programmable shortcut keys and dual touch controls for scrolling and zooming. This effectively mirrors a modern desktop display for artists and other visual editors, according to Wacom. The 20WSX ships for $1,999. [full story]