While it's unlikely as it would spell the demise of the manufacturer/brand if made public, yes.
If the manufacturer installed VNC and connected out to a remote server when you came online, yes, this could happen.
You could use WireShark on your PC/Mac attached to the same network to see if the tablet was sending VNC (or similar) data to or from a remote location fairly easily.
It's a well known fact that Apple installed "Keys-dropping" software on their devices to track what you do, but I don't believe it was a 2-way connection. I believe the data was just reported, but not received by the device.
First, stop looking for a "better" design. Functional design is a much better goal. It's better to launch an ugly site and make it better over time (or not, see Craig's List) than to never launch the site at all.
As a developer, I found that writing code so that the site is easily skinned so as to accommodate quick re-skinning makes my fickle sense of design easier to overcome. The fact that "I CAN" re-skin it allows me to not focus on the fact that "I should" re-skin it. Using a modular template approach facilitates this... Load the various parts of the page from templates: top (pre-head), head, body top, body content, body footer, and finally page footer.
Second, outsource the design and give that person the power to make the final decision.
Finally, spend time (and money) on sites like ThemeForest.net (no affiliation) and 99Designs.com (no affiliation) to get implementation ideas and templates.
Who in the world would buy a $1000 laptop with Intel's 3000 series graphics chipset?
If this is supposed to compete with the MacBook Air, Dell completely missed the boat, especially with a $799 air coming out within the next 3 months (oops, beans spilled... sorry Apple).
Additionally, I'd rather have the MacBook Air so I can run Windows AND Mac OSX and write native iPhone apps, and I'd still spend the same $999.
Yes, Apple too missed the boat by using Intel's 3000 graphics chipset, and YES, Apple's hard drive is smaller, but NO, the Dell can't run OSX...
Why can't these folks just give us a 10-hour, 14" Air-like laptop with an nVidia 560Ti, 256GB solid state, and 8GB of DDR3-1600 RAM for $999? THAT's what we really want, right?
Quad-core, 4GB (I upgraded it to 8GB for $50), 17"... Runs Linux quite nicely, even as a KVM host. Battery life is 3-4 hours. Don't be "hatin" on the games-a-playin ;-)
If the manufacturer installed VNC and connected out to a remote server when you came online, yes, this could happen.
You could use WireShark on your PC/Mac attached to the same network to see if the tablet was sending VNC (or similar) data to or from a remote location fairly easily.
It's a well known fact that Apple installed "Keys-dropping" software on their devices to track what you do, but I don't believe it was a 2-way connection. I believe the data was just reported, but not received by the device.