On January 27, Apple will unveil its "latest creation", widely expected to be a 10-or-11-inch touch screen tablet computer. Just as the iPhone and the iTunes App Store created new business opportunities for game and mobile application developers, newspaper and magazine publishers are hoping that the iSlate will similarly transform their beleaguered industry. 

"Both the iPhone and the Kindle have proven that people are willing to buy the devices, read on the devices, and pay for content," said Greg Hano of Bonnier Technology Group, which publishes Popular Science and other notable titles. "We already have a proof of concept,"  

For more than a decade, the vast majority of magazines and newspapers have been freely available to consumers on the Internet. Lost circulation revenue combined with a prolonged economic downturn is now leaving these traditional industries on life support. An optimistic prospect is that the iSlate and other tablet computers introduced by Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and Lenovo will create new media experiences consumers are willing to pay for.

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