MICHAEL S. MALONE: Tablet Dreams. “Apple’s introduction Wednesday of its new iPad — the jokes have already begun about the name and feminine hygiene — was just the latest in what has been one of the most enduring obsessions in high tech history. I’m not sure exactly why tablets are so appealing. Perhaps it’s because they harken back to the natural human tendency to write and draw on the nearest flat wall or stone or scrap of wood. Or maybe it’s a kind of cultural memory from the days of cuneiform writing on slabs of drying mud, or marking with chalk on a piece of slate in a one room schoolhouse. Whatever the reason, the dream of a smart, interactive tablet is almost as old as electronics itself.”