On Wednesday, I joined a number of other guests and some 200 Dell employees in Austin for SMaC Talk. SMaC is Dell’s Social Media Community; the meeting pulled together the employees who work in the social media space in business units and staff functions from throughout the organization for an unconference. (More to come on that.) At the end of the day, the team was invited to hold the soon-to-be-launched Dell Streak in their hands—virtually. The Streak—an Android-powered tablet with a 5-inch screen—is the subject of considerable buzz inside and outside Dell. Some wonder about the size, not too much bigger than some of the larger smartphones (like the HTC Evo) and considerably smaller than the iPad. To give people a sense of what it would look like in their hands, Dell has developed an Augmented Reality tool set to go live sometime today(Friday, July 30) on Facebook. Print out the marker, fold the paper into the size of the Streak and hold the marker up to your webcam, and you’ll see the Streak in your hand. There’s more to the Streak Simul8r (as it’s called) than just the AR tool, but it’s another example of the practical application of Augmented Reality.

I had the opportunity to hold a real Streak. While I’ll probably wait for a 7-inch model, I found the Streak to be an elegant little device that offers a viable alternative to the big, heavy iPad. I still believe the best place for these devices will be the family room coffee table.