HP recently sent out invitations to an event being held early next month, which reports say will be the unveiling of a tablet that runs Palm's webOS. Now it appears HP itself has confirmed that the "PalmPad" will debut that day.

In an interview with CNBC's Maria Bartiromo last Friday at CES (first pointed out by Pre Central), HP Executive Vice President Todd Bradley let slip what the February HP event will be about. In a response to how a webOS tablet might differentiate itself from the iPad, he said, "You and I will talk about that on the ninth."

Bradley was almost certainly referring to the PalmPad, a webOS tablet that's been rumored to be in the works for some time. Fox News last month posted what it said were leaked specs and diagrams of the device, showing a tablet with a 9.7-inch screen, an HDMI output, and front- and rear-facing cameras. As webOS is also the operating system on the Palm Pre 2 smartphone, it's likely there will be new phones as well.

If the PalmPad is coming, it will face challenges on two fronts: 1) The dominant presence of the iPad in the tablet market and 2) A host of competitors vying for second place. More than 80 tablets were shown at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the most promising being slates based on Google's upcoming tablet-specific OS, Android 3.0 "Honeycomb."

However, the tablet market has yet to mature,with the iPad almost a year old, there are opportunities to stand out before Apple brings to market its successor to the iPad, which is expected to come this spring.

WebOS, although popular with Palm Pre users, accounts for just 3.9 percent of the 61.5 million smartphones in the U.S., according to November numbers from ComScore.

You can watch CNBC's full interview with Bradley in the video below.