Techmeme proves: Tablets are hot

Is there any question that Tablets are hot? If you’re skeptical, check out Techmeme this morning. As of 10:15AM PT, there are three lead Tablet stories on Techmeme. Yes, three.

The lead linked story points to an article supposedly describing 10 new facts known about the Apple tablet.

The second story is about Apple hiring back a former Newton team member–supposedly to work on a forthcoming Apple tablet.

And the third story link is to a Gizmodo discussion on the leaked Microsoft Courier project.

All that we’re missing is a couple stories on CrunchPad, Archos’ tablet announcement or maybe one about TabletKiosk’s updated slates or Intel’s latest MIDs or OLPC’s efforts or….or….or. You get the idea.

Tablets are hot–particularly the keyboardless, slate kind. (Can you believe it? After all the arguments that we really do need physical keyboards, there’s all this market momentum to build devices that don’t have them??!!)

My theory why this is happening now: Put simply, we’re on the cusp of devices like this being practical, both from an engineering standpoint and from a consumer cost standpoint. Ideas for devices like these have been floating around for years. Now they’re just beginning to become practical. Thank ARM, Intel, 3G, capacitive touch, neural net-like algorithms on the software side, Apple (for the iPhone, Microsoft (for the Tablet PC), Google (for showing how to do fast search of the web), and yes, even Twitter and Facebook. There are lots more that have been contributing to this market movement too. Lots. All I’ve got to say is, can’t wait.