Well, I suppose this is good news. According to Mary Jo Foley, Microsoft is upping the specs for the next gen UMPC's, and offering some hope that they'll be cheaper. Even at $599, I'm still not sure why I would want one though. This seems to be a product in search of a market, which isn't usually a good business model. I'm sure there are some vertical markets for such a device (we talked about using something similar to manage food orders on race day at the suites at IMS, for example). I could possibly see something like this useful in stores if you could combine credit card processing somehow.
But widespread use? I'm still unconvinced. Anyway, the link is below.
Microsoft offers guidelines for next-gen UMPCs | All about Microsoft | ZDNet.com