The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy contained as much information as “several inconveniently large buildings” – but displayed it on a four-inch screen above hundreds of small buttons. Were Douglas Adams writing today, he might have imagined a touchscreen tablet. Certainly the entire consumer electronics industry seems convinced they are the future – inspired both by Amazon's Kindle e-reader and the expectation that Apple will today launch an iSlate/iPad/iCanvas. But in spite of all the hoopla, there are reasons to question tablets' promise.
《银河系漫游指南》(The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy)包含的信息，可以装满“几座奇大无比的建筑”，却显示在一个4英寸的屏幕上，下方是数百个小按钮。假如道格拉斯•亚当斯(Douglas Adams)是在今天编写作品，他或许已经想象到了触摸屏平板电脑。的确，在亚马逊(Amazon)的Kindle电子阅读器和预期苹果(Apple)将于27日推出名为iSlate（或iPad、iCanvas）的平板电脑的双重鼓舞下，整个消费类电子产品行业看上去已经确信：这类产品就是未来。不过，尽管平板电脑炒得如此火热，我们仍有理由对它的前景表示怀疑。