Analysts have said that the $499 price point is a sweet spot for tablets, and a big part of why Apple has sold more than 15 million iPads so far. The BlackBerry PlayBook will match that price. What do you think? Will the PlayBook catch on?

Photo: A BlackBerry Playbook is demoed at the 2011 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Jan. 6, 2011.Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

At the D: Dive into Mobile conference in San Francisco yesterday, Andy Rubin, Google’s VP of Mobile Platforms delivered a keynote - addressing mobile phone technology as well as what the future of tablets might look like. He dove into Android — explaining the past (Android started as an eight-person start-up), present, and possible future.

Here’s our favorite quote:

Question: Is Android too clunky? Will we see a sea change where Android really gets more user friendly?

Rubin: I would probably characterize Android today as an enthusiast product for early adopters — or wives of tech enthusiasts.

In a Q&A with Oliver Reichenstein of Information Architects (@iA), we explored what the future of writing looks like on tablets, and what the future of Web design holds.

Reichenstein, who started the company in Tokyo in 2005, said his greatest influence for creating the app Writer for iPad was not being able to speak Japanese.

When you can’t read the language, everything is defined in forms, everything becomes a user interface. You look at the world as if it were a blueprint.

 When I designed Writer, I tried to look at things from the perspective of someone who cannot read.

As HTC carries out its so-far successful invasion of the U.S. cellphone market, the Taiwanese company’s neighbor to the north is staging an American blitz of its own.

Micro-Star International (MSI) is preparing an arsenal of touch-screen computers while riding the netbook wave with a series of budget-friendly laptops. The netbook trend appears to be waning, according to a report by Barclays Capital, and analysts and many manufacturers including MSI expect it to be supplanted by tablets.

Photo: Detail of someone trying the “WriTalk real-time writing telephone,” where deaf and hard of hearing people can communicate with screens of information. This was part of the high-tech products featured at the 4th statewide Self-Help for Hard of Hearing people convention. Credit: Kevin P. Casey / Los Angeles Times

Last week, we wrote about cell phones segmenting the Web. The problem being that Internet companies are having to build separate apps and mini-screen-optimized versions of its site to accommodate phones.

The suspected rise of the tablets could reverse that trend. With bigger but still portable screens, more Web surfing could return to the full-blown sites.

That’s good for just about everyone. It eats less development time and resources from companies that can be focused elsewhere. And pages are more readable for users.

Photo credit: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

A day after Apple’s announcement of the iPad, sports betting website Bookmaker.com posted its odds on the best-selling tablet in 2010.

Amazon Kindle +300
Barnes & Noble Nook +275
Sony’s Reader +400
Irex Iliad +500
Fujitsu Flepia +550
Dell Mini 5 +400
Apple iPad +200
HP Slate +350

Was there any doubts that the house was going to bet on Apple?

What a Google tablet computer might look like

The concept video looks more like a computer crammed into a tablet than a phone blown up onto a pad.

The manufacturer of the JooJoo tablet computer — formally the CrunchPad after a short-lived PR push from TechCrunch — might want to start shipping the things it began taking orders for on Dec. 11.

We hear Apple is coming out with something very, very similar that’s going to drink the JooJoo’s milkshake.

Image courtesy of Fusion Garage