According to this article on globeandmail.com, Toronto department store William Ashley has a new toy for brides-and-grooms-to-be registering at their store: a Nokia tablet PC that's adapted from the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet and called the Wish Pad. Use is simple: walk around the Bloor Street location (the pilot store for the program), spot an item you like and enter a code into the Wish Pad. The Wish Pad confirms your choice with an image and voice description of the product, then saves the whole thing. Get lost in the store? The Wish Pad includes a GPS system. Have a question? There's a button to page a registry assistant. There's even email access in case you need to send something out while you're shopping.

Designed to appeal to grooms and get them more involved in the registering experience, the 20 Wish Pads have seen constant use since their introduction 8 weeks ago. Personally, I'm not sure I see the appeal. As someone who's been through the process using websites (which was painful enough) the idea of walking around a store looking for items, even if I get to enter them in a handheld computer, wouldn't really do it for me. But then again, I hate shopping.