We fear multi-touch tablet computers mostly because we were raised to keep our greasy paws off of the computer screen. If you don't want to shell out the 500 clams you'd need for a tablet from Apple or HP, you can cheat with a Siso Tablo from Hantech, which comes with a motion sensor and pens with mouse controls.

Not only can you use it to write directly on your screen -- making it great for artists -- you can take notes with the pen on paper with handwriting-recognition software putting your scribbles directly on your monitor. The pen interacts with both office-software suites and drawing programs, such as Adobe Illustrator.

The Siso Tablo will cost you about $99 and works with Windows only.

In other tablet news, Google just purchased chip-maker Aginlux in order to make a run at this computing category. (Though if their tablet ends up like the Nexus One, the iPad has nothing to fear.)