Um... pocket PC's? Anyone remember those? The author didn't. They were the predicessor of the palm computers and the Newton didn't even get a mention either.
Unfortunate that things like this aren't made any more. I saw a 'real' pocket PC in a store in Canada in 1997. Low-end Pentium, 16MB of RAM, Win95, and a full keyboard (can't remember if it had a numeric pad... probably not). Wouldn't win any awards for technical specifications, but it was smaller than a DVD case.
PocketPCs now are significantly smaller, but they can't run the same programs as your desktop machine!