UDPATE: The TabCo Grid 10 has been outed - it's the JooJoo 2.
You've got to admire TabCo: where other tablet firms are happy to say "here's our new tablet. We hope you like it!", TabCo is asking the rest of the industry to step outside for a fist-fight.
With tongue firmly in cheek, TabCo is comparing its efforts to the pyramid builders, Sir Isaac Newton, Thomas Edison, Tim Berners-Lee and Apple.
Can any tablet live up to so much hype? Here's a clue: no. But let's go along with it anyway.
The TabCo tablet specifications are secret
There is no official TabCo tablet features list. The only promised TabCo tablet spec is "a much higher cool factor than the stuff out there today". Them's fighting words.
The TabCo release date should be revealed in mid-August
As the teaser videos hint. TabCo promises to reveal all on 15 August. Whether that reveal will include the TabCo tablet specifications, price and release date, or just more marketing nonsense, remains to be seen.
The TabCo Tablet specs suggest an iPad-a-like design
On the company blog, TabCo says that the tablet will be lighter than 1.33lbs and bigger than a 7.31 x 9.5 inch tablet, which just happen to be the weight and size of an iPad 2. TabCo promises Bluetooth, USB, 3G/4G data, applications including Angry Birds and "something new and innovative to the tablet world regarding physical design."
The TabCo tablet software could be interesting
TabCo says that its tablet software will have a "spherically inspired" user interface, which reminds us of Microsoft's Ultra-Mobile PC designs and its (sadly, canned) Courier project, but the site also says that "there will be elements of the interface that might remind you of a Rubik's Cube."
The TabCo OS might not be Android
"It's hard keeping all those Android versions straight," TabCo says. "Does your tablet run Froyo? Gingerbread? Honeycomb? Ice Cream Sandwich? What do those even mean? Are you really just buying an OS made for a phone, sloppily put onto a tablet? You should know before you buy." It also mocks Apple "fanboys" and parodies the famous 1984 Macintosh ad - although it also says people should "stop waiting for an 'iPad Killer'" - and suggests that when Microsoft invented the tablet PC, "the name stuck. The product, not so much."
The TabCo could be an elaborate hoax
Nobody appears to know who's behind TabCo. Is it Nokia, bringing MeeGo to the tablet in awesome fashion? Does the quoted commandment "if at first thy tablet fails, innovate, innovate, innovate again" mean Motorola's pulling the strings, or is Microsoft preparing to show off a Windows 8 tablet that'll make Steve Jobs squeak? Nobody knows, and the whole thing could be an elaborate PR stunt designed to annoy everybody.
The TabCo launch could backfire horribly
Assuming there's a real product here, the marketing campaign is taking a huge risk: if the tablet doesn't turn out to have four times the resolution of a retina display, a battery that lasts for two years and the ability to bring your ancestors back from the dead, the tablet's going to be a laughing stock. No matter what you think of the campaign, you've got to admire its bravery. We'll find out more on the fifteenth.
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