People who study technological advances and world-changing innovations typically agree on one point: nothing revolutionary comes out of the blue. 

New ideas and technologies spend a long time hiding in plain sight before they suddenly change the world as we know it. Moreover, the agents of radical change are often already familiar to us. 

Consider the Internet Revolution. At its heart you have a rather mundane concept: connect a bunch of computers to each other. But think about how much this mundane concept has changed our lives -- often in exciting and unexpected ways. 

The Internet Revolution seemed to happen in the blink of an eye, but computers --even computer networks -- had been around for decades. The same goes for other 'breakthroughs' in history. Automotive technology was already old news by the time Henry Ford came along and changed the world with his Model T. Going back even further, we learn that moveable type had been

around for years before Gutenberg unveiled his printing press. (See also: Everything Is a Remix)

Which brings us to tablets. The technology behind tablets is familiar. Impressive, yes, but not mind-blowingly new. Yet there are indications that there's a tablet-driven revolution in the making. 

The number of businesses wanting their employees to have real-time, on-demand access to content, the internet, and business applications is rapidly increasing. And the tablet is emerging as the alternative to laptops and smartphones. According to Mobile Enterprise and The 451 Group, 42% of companies are allowing the use of tablets in their business. 

After years of simmering on the back burner, tablets have suddenly reached a boiling point. They are now threatening the dominance of traditional computing devices—PCs. You can see these slim machines at work in virtually every industry, from the courtroom to the cockpit.

Some analysts are touting the tablet as a netbook and laptop killer. While few think that tablets will completely replace the use of PC's and smartphones, most believe that the tablet will fundamentally change the way we work. The mere design of tablets makes them far more convenient to transport and user friendly than the traditional laptop. Apple's release of the iPad in 2010 opened the door for the development of many new tablets. At the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show, the development of more than 80 new tablets was announced.

What do you think? Will tablet computers become the catalyst for major change -- on the scale of networked computers (aka the Internet)? Many people will shrug and say the tablet as just another computer, only smaller. Then again, the Internet is just another network, only bigger.