If you watched TUAW TV Live this last Wednesday, you'll know that I made jest of the name of what is actually a pretty cool product -- the Tabü tablet poüch -- because of the proliferation of umlauts on the product packaging. At least that's what I think the product is called; the Kickstarter project from whence it sprang seems to eliminate the umlauts. But ignoring the existence or nonexistence of a pair of dots, this US$39.99 product has achieved its Kickstarter funding and will be shipping soon.

Design and Functionality

The Tabu (I'm dropping the umlauts for brevity) tablet pouch reminds me of the little plastic pencil pouches that we had in elementary school when I was but a child back in the 60s. One side was made of a translucent plastic material so you could look at the contents of the pouch without having to unzip it.

Scale that pencil pouch up to iPad size and you have the general idea of the tablet pouch. It too has a clear plastic pouch on one side, so you can pop in your iPad accessories (stylus, Camera Connection Kit, AC adapter, etc...) and see at a glance if you've forgotten any goodies.

But a translucent plastic pouch isn't going to protect your iPad, is it? No, that's where the other half of the Tabu tablet pouch comes in handy. It's a thin, but extremely well-protected pouch with a magnetic closure at one end and walls made of memory foam.

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"Isn't that the stuff they make beds out of?", you ask. Yes. Yes, it is. But don't worry, this thing is really thin; it's not a thick bed-like hunk of memory foam. You won't even be able to use the tablet pouch as a pillow as a result, but for your iPad, that thin layer of memory foam is just enough to keep it really safe. Tabu did some testing with a piece of non-tempered, non-strengthened glass panel (much more