The latest two snippets could be filed under not actually related or speculative wishful thinking. The first takes harping obsessively over the tiniest of new hardware and hyping it into something it may or may not be. Images turning up on Engadget purport to be the SIM card tray for the iPhone 4 and the mythical tablet. The new trays feature thicker edges, a metal frame, and a few adjustments made to the size of the extraction hole.

It's nothing spectacular in and of itself, though as remarked by article author Thomas Ricker, the SIM tray's hardier nature could point toward a larger device. Then again, as also noted, the tray could also be used almost anywhere else.

But nothing gets a crowd worked up better than a member of the media elite letting slip with a tidbit, someone supposed to be in the know on such things, the kind of person who meets privately with Steve Jobs at Davos. Tablet rumor element number two comes in to play here in a speech given by the executive editor of the New York Times, Bill Keller. 

Bill Keller speaks to the digital group at The New York Times from Nieman Journalism Lab on Vimeo.

Ostensibly at private "all-hands" address about the digital future of the Times delivered on October 16th, Keller dropped this knowing quote:

"[W]e need to figure out the right journalistic product to deliver to mobile platforms and devices. I'm hoping we can get the newsroom more actively involved in the challenge of delivering our best journalism in the form of Times Reader, iPhone apps, WAP, or the impending Apple slate, or whatever comes after that."

The crowd didn't burst into furious whispers, but the Internet did when the video was published on Vimeo. Was Keller talking about something he knew about first hand? After all, reports had surfaced months ago that Apple and the Times had been in talks about delivering the news org's content on a "new device." And Steve Jobs had called the New York Times the best newspaper in existence.

Or was it, as some cynics suggested, that Keller was just aping conventional wisdom and taking it for granted a tablet was in the works because of the media echo chamber? Watch the above video at around the 8:15 mark and judge for yourself. We think Keller sounds fairly blase about the matter, which could be taken as evidence in either direction. 

And, as we find ourselves thinking after yet another news story about the tablet, only time will tell.