Before a raft of Tablet PCs make their debut next week, another category of wireless flat panel devices is already being lined up.

Microsoft said products based on its Smart Displays wireless screen technology would be available worldwide from next year, though they were originally due this year. Analysts believe the wireless screens will be significantly cheaper than their tablet predecessors, starting at around £300 compared with £1,500.

Based on the Windows CE operating system used in handheld devices, the displays are intended to allow users to view data on a flat-panel display connected to a wireless network.

The technology, codenamed Mira, was first demonstrated in January and has picked up a roster of licensees including Philips, LG, NEC, Fujitsu and Panasonic. ViewSonic expects to have 10in and 15in Smart Display products in its Airpanel family available from April.

ViewSonic Airpanel

However, Mira still faces some technology hurdles. Devices require a host PC and WiFi 802.11 wireless LAN connection but there is no support for concurrent usage by multiple users at the moment in Windows XP Home Edition. Users will therefore need Windows XP Professional Edition installed on the host PC, despite the fact that Mira is seen primarily as a consumer product.

"We already have products developed," said Aaron Fright, European product marketing manager at ViewSonic. "The XP Pro upgrade and concurrency are [barriers to adoption] but we will eventually see Mira in the business environment. We see the initial audience being early adopters - the sorts of people who already have ADSL installed."

Although some analysts have speculated that the delay to Mira was caused by the fact that its specification overlapped too much with that of the Tablet PC spec - a fully-fledged pen-based format with local storage and processing - Mira Smart Displays will be significantly cheaper. Tablet PCs will cost from £1,500 at first but Mira products are expected to cost from as little as £300.

Microsoft predicts Mira will eventually enable wireless links to a range of other electronic devices, including refrigerators.

Many attempts at reinventing computer formats have floundered. IBM, Timex, Sharp and others have produced wristwatches with information management and communications features, for example, but none has been a huge success.

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