Between the Lines

Larry Dignan, Andrew Nusca and Rachel King

Your next tablet computer will be circular

By | July 20, 2011, 8:54am PDT

Summary: TabCo sent ZDNet HQ a pizza in anticipation of a new circular tablet computing device. What does it mean?

Just when I think I’ve seen everything as a jaded tech reporter, someone goes and sends us a pizza as a press release.

The company: TabCo.

The pizza: pepperoni.

TabCo chief executive “Ian Quincy” — in quotes because he’s not on LinkedIn, and that’s fishy for a CEO — sent me (and I presume many other New York-based tech reporters) a little note yesterday explaining that his “tablet company” will be launching “some very new products this summer.”

“Pizza is a New York City staple,” he writes, “and I personally love the circular shape!”

The hints aren’t lost on me. The pizza has arrived, with pepperoni arranged in a date (8-15-11) and a note taped to the top of the cardboard box notes that TabCo is “reinventing the wheel.”

A few details about the note:

  • Partners are named: Twitter, Flickr, Yahoo, IMDB, Bing, Facebook, MSN
  • A circular menu is illustrated, with search, copy, cut, paste, apps and “select all” commands.
  • The Wikipedia entry for the film Inception is reprinted, along with a presumable peek at the tablet’s menu bar, which includes the time, Wi-Fi, inbox unread count, volume and battery life meters.

With all of this manufactured mystery, I’m just going to have to call this the Lady Gaga of tablets. (DGui has a nice roundup of all the hints we know about this device so far; it could be Nokia.)

Who might this be? (The WhoIs entry for the company is thin.) And what’s coming? I don’t know, but I sure am hungry.

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Topics

Andrew J. Nusca is associate editor of ZDNet and editor of SmartPlanet.

Disclosure

Andrew Nusca

Andrew J. Nusca does not hold any investments in the technology companies he covers.

Biography

Andrew Nusca

Editor

Andrew J. Nusca is an associate editor at ZDNet and editor of SmartPlanet. As a journalist based in New York City, he has written for Popular Mechanics and Men's Vogue and his byline has appeared in New York magazine, The Huffington Post, New York Daily News, Editor & Publisher, New York Press and many others. He also writes The Editorialiste, a media criticism blog.

He is a New York University graduate and former news editor and columnist of the Washington Square News. He is a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He has been named "Howard Kurtz, Jr." by film critic John Lichman despite having no relation to him. He lives in his native Philadelphia with his wife, cat and Boston Terrier.

Follow him on Twitter.

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RE: Your next tablet computer will be circular
FAULKNE 13th Oct
Good day to confirm this comment I would appreciate T h e b e s t o f Z D N e t d e l i v e r e d your website very nice to everyone Yes, Oracle is the only one with shared-disk architecture, but that is there advantage. It means you can add or remove nodes and the database lives on. In a shared nothing architecture, if you lose a node, you lose the system. I'm sure Oracle appreciates EMC highlighting their advantage.I also desire to signal in your RSS feeds. Thank you as soon as once again and maintain up the great operate Awesome post! Thank you very much || thanks for nice content this is really benefit to me.
Do consumers really want to grasp a giant circle? How can they hold this thing and not get the urge to fling it to their dog? It will be unique that is for sure. I guess at this point in the tablet game, if you can't beat them, and can't join, then screw with them and create something absurd.
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Editor
@Bates_ could just be a reference to the menus themselves, not the device. but it's clear that they want to emphasize that as a point of competitive differentiation.
@andrew.nusca Touche! Regardless I am quite curious to see this device. I am almost hoping for a circular tablet, or a PIETAB if you will.
@Bates_

Though add a Kinect and you could have a virtual dartboard???

Holy Cow - I'm gonna patent that idea!
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Message has been deleted.
Janelle8 Updated - 20th Jul
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Very creative. You gonna eat all that?
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Perfect for viewing pie charts!
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@Jarhead5811
Good one! happy

But it makes me wonder how you view your bar charts!
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Editor
...Sicilian.
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What's the stock price?
voltrarian 20th Jul
Mentions of Partners such as "Twitter, Flickr, Yahoo, IMDB, Bing, Facebook, MSN" will raise the valuation price in the unregulated, secondary markets.

Financial companies with early buy-ins & lots to gain will coincidentally have glowingly bullish, high-valuation reports from their analysis departments.
This tablet has to be named Pi, doesn't it?
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Won't other tablet manufacturers sue because of the rounded edges? Companies like Bayer, Glaxo, Beechams...
I think that TabCo will turn out to be INQ and they will be offering a tablet running either a custom OS or more likely Android running a UI layer that emphasizes circles.

Their current UI uses circles as a theme and the Q in INQ is also a very circular graphic.

Further to that, their CEO "I"a"N" "Q"uincy seems to use the same letters as the company name.

Anyway, that's my prediction.
@fraughtwith
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Good day to confirm this comment I would appreciate T h e b e s t o f Z D N e t d e l i v e r e d your website very nice to everyone Yes, Oracle is the only one with shared-disk architecture, but that is there advantage. It means you can add or remove nodes and the database lives on. In a shared nothing architecture, if you lose a node, you lose the system. I'm sure Oracle appreciates EMC highlighting their advantage.I also desire to signal in your RSS feeds. Thank you as soon as once again and maintain up the great operate Awesome post! Thank you very much || thanks for nice content this is really benefit to me.

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