The ghosts haunting future tablets

Hardware makers such as Dell and Hewlett-Packard stumbled with their first tablet attempts. But with a new Microsoft operating system created especially for touchscreens, the companies were ready to dust off their pants and get back on the tablet horse -- that is, until Microsoft tripped them up through announcing its own hardware.

Now, Dell and HP might avoid tablets altogether.%VIRTUAL-SkimlinksPromo%