LED Keyboards are cool.
Definately a step forward, if the price could be reasonable.
But still not as cool as a keyboard that literally changes shape.
(Although the LED keyboard has room to evolve. I think some of the controls shouldn’t be just buttons but dials, sliders, and other doohickeys. The displays would serve as labels and feedback. It’d be a solid, and realistic, step toward the “physical GUI.”)
I’ve been using some flavor or another of tablets for close to 15 years, and I like it a LOT more than using a mouse.
My current tablet is a Wacom Intuos, and it came with the pen and a mouse so guests are able to use it without too much confusion. Their current “Bamboo Fun” tablet also comes with a mouse and pen.
I use a touchscreen computer where I have the display sitting on a music stand. I am a guitarist and I often sit down and use it to display music and tablature and to play instructional pieces (both audio and visual). While I could have set it up with an extra table & mouse, I find the touchscreen both useful & convenient for this purpose. I also use it as a jukebox, although for this purpose an iPod might be just as useful & much cheaper.
Megadittoes. There’s a woman in my department whose office I hate to visit because her screen is horribly befouled with skin oil, dirt, and sometimes even food due to her constant digital molestation. If she ever gets an actual touch screen, it’s going to look like she firehosed her monitor with Vaseline.
At least she doesn’t have whiteout marks on it.
A video I saw that you may wanna take a look at
I find it incredibly funny to read all these people who think that the only decent way to use a computer is to have some silly screen sitting just out of reasonable reach from you, while you occupy both hands with typing and/or use of a pointing device. :rolleyes:
Howabout we move the “computer” so that it gets used in a more natural way, like, oh, I don’t know, the way that humans interacted with paper/tablets for like thousands of years?
How about freeing our hands up by finally putting voice recognition software to use the way it should be, allowing me to make this post without having my hands involved more than minimally?
How about combining the idea of an interactive computer screen with the idea of a pointer that you hold, not one you roll around on what you hope will be a flat surface of sufficient size? And, by the way, which allows you to re-orient the screen without having to re-orient how you think about what you are pointing at?
In twenty-five years’ time, you will find the notion of a mouse/keyboard/monitor quite quaint. Your kids will find the whole notion bizarre. Much as you probably think rotary dial telephones are. 
ETA: I should point out that my students tend to see the potential of this far better than adults. The ones who have 3G phones use them quite computer-like, and think nothing of it. Several of them have opined that computers would be better if they could be like their phones.
I totally agree with DSYoungEsq and have gone touch screen at home (HP Touch Screen) and with my phone (BB Storm) over the last 6 months. I still use a mouse at my work computer, but only because the apps have long been set up for mouse usage (and they won’t buy me a Touch Screen anyway).
My 27 y/o daughter loves that her dad is into cutting edge gizmos and is looking forward to having me handing down this type of stuff to her two years (or less) from now.
Direct Interactions such as touch, gesture or pen based interfaces are great for learnability and in collaborative settings but they have one major downside which is that they’re inefficient. If you’re working on a 15 inch tablet and you want to drag something 10 inches with a pen, you need to move your hand 10 inches. If you use a mouse, you only move a fraction of an inch.
This means that people are instantly wowed by direct interaction devices yet quickly get frustrated with prolonged use. The efficiency advantage of a mouse can be an enormous advantage in long term use of familiar applications.
Not wanting to turn this into a Great Debate, but . . .
I don’t use one at work for the reasons you stated. That and the software/hardware is set up for mouse use. But I could easily see touchscreen desk setups where you stand and lay your hands on the desktop most of the day and interact with software that is optimized to take advantage of hand manipulation. Editing video feeds comes to mind. Of course there will still be a mouse, since I doubt that there will ever be an all in one solution that works for everybody in every situation.
At home I use a combination of hand and mouse manipulation, depending on the application. It’s definitely a lot more fun to play certain games using the touchscreen.
Voice recognition just isn’t practical in a work enviornment. Nor at home unless you’re alone as far as I’m concerned. Who wants to hear your mate or kids blabbing away at the computer? “What?” “I was talking to the computer” No thanks, I can type just fine.
And IMHO, for fine cursor control, say mapping and drafting, your finger is just too big. Laser pointers to hold and point are too shaky. Sure I can use my finger on my Storm, but it would never do in my work enviornment.
Also, I can cover my entire screen quickly and very accurately by just moving my mouse a few inches. How are we gonna cover dual 20" screens with your finger? What possible benifit is there?
Sure something else might come along, and full size touch screens are practical for some specific applications. But for every day work where you may have a dozen windows open, I just don’t see it.