Tablets as a daily incarnation are more a hindrance than a help. The goal of a touch screen interface is to make computing INTUITIVE.
INTUITIVE is when a small child who has never put his own hands on a computer before can instantly interact in a meaningful way with a computer. THAT is the goal of good interface.
If, like with ALL tablets and touch screens today (with the possible exception of the iPhone/iPod Touch) you have to do ANY configuration or use any menus to make touch work, it doesn't achieve the goal of INTUITIVE, and will then not present an attractive alternative to the consumer.
When I use even Dell's Latitude XT on Windows Vista, in order for the touch screen to work right with stylus or my hand, I have to have both the screen resolution right and I have to go through an alignment procedure. This is NOT INTUITIVE.
Projects like Surface and Jeff Han's work seem to aim to achieve this goal by computing with tangible objects, directly interacting with the data you want to use, rather than a series of buttons, commands, and shortcuts. They also (like iPhone) eliminate the configuration step.
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