The Tablet of the Future From 1994

[kjk]

http://www.paleofuture.com/blog/2007...aper-1994.html

Knight-Ridder produced a video in 1994 demonstrating their faith in the tablet newspaper of the future.

Looks...familiar

[ADuphily]

I wonder if Apple will try to figure out a way to sue them for infringement too

[RainingLemur]

Originally Posted by ADuphily

I wonder if Apple will try to figure out a way to sue them for infringement too

Probably not. The tablet in that article isn't "magical" or "revolutionary." If it had been billed as such, Apple would enlist their Time Cops to go back and sue the pants off of Knight-Ridder.

[toronado]

I just saw this posted on netbooknews. Great video!

I like how large their prototype/mockup tablet is. I also like that they use a stylus with it.

I like how the photo of the baseball game just starts moving and becomes a video. Right now, you would see a blurry freeze-frame from the middle of the video and big giant ">" in the screen, then when you press play you would have to watch some obnoxious, loud pre-roll advert. Wouldn't it be better to have still images instantly transform into moving images the way they show it in their hypothetical?

[Canuck_in_Japan]

Wow, 2:25 of that video is amazingly prescient. Especially for 1994. They were a bit off about when this technology would really take off but only by about 10 years.

[Anthem]

So much hope! Man, that things rad. I think a lot of people expected more from the 90's as far as our relation to digital "things" was concerned.

[J. Strnad]

First, thanks for bringing that incredible site to my attention! Love it!

Secondly, the initial image on that video could be more what the Kindle-with-ads screensaver looks like. The images Amazon is showing now are all oh-so-tasteful, but come on...if the Kindle catches on as an advertising outlet, we'll see screensavers that look like your local supermarket ad (or worse, an ad for Fry's Electronics).

[kjk]

Originally Posted by J. Strnad

First, thanks for bringing that incredible site to my attention! Love it!

I love that site too-I think it's fascinating how much stuff he has from the 60s-not sure if that's just his personal bias, or if that was just a particularly rich decade.

[RichL]

KJK
My take on it is that the 60's were particularly productive (Seattle's Century 21 Exposition and the like) but many of those ideas actually came from the 30's and 40's. The dreamer kids that grew up with Amazing Stories, Thrilling Wonder Stories and other sci-fi magazines in those decades were the engineers that were giving life to those dreams in the 50's and beyond.

[ebusinesstutor]

Originally Posted by ADuphily

I wonder if Apple will try to figure out a way to sue them for infringement too

Maybe they should be suing Apple. The iPad is clearly a rip off of this!

[mike_bike_kite]

Originally Posted by RichL

My take on it is that the 60's were particularly productive

Probably because the future was real back then while now the future is just a sad copy of today but worse.

[grumpy3b]

Originally Posted by kjk

http://www.paleofuture.com/blog/2007...aper-1994.html

Looks...familiar

Fun site...and I've been waiting for the modern slate PC's since the 70s. We've been promised them since the first portable computers were sold. Have no idea why they never came about until now. Must have been the screen and power tech rather than CPU and RAM issues.

All I know is they STILL haven't delivered my auto-drive vehicles. Closest is the current "parking assist" vehicles for those incapable of the mundane task of parallel parking...yawn...if you can't parallel park you should not be allowed to drive period. Plus you should be required to eat with a rubber spork with corks on the tines!! hahaha...

[grumpy3b]

Originally Posted by RichL

KJK
My take on it is that the 60's were particularly productive (Seattle's Century 21 Exposition and the like) but many of those ideas actually came from the 30's and 40's. The dreamer kids that grew up with Amazing Stories, Thrilling Wonder Stories and other sci-fi magazines in those decades were the engineers that were giving life to those dreams in the 50's and beyond.

very good take. Many people simply don't realize just how many modern ideas and products were born in the 20s - 30s. The 40s sort of took a decade off, I think people were busy with some odd thing called WWII. Oddly WWI actually seemed to spur on creativity in the 20s. Sometimes that period from the 20s to late 30s is referred to as the "Modernist" period. Also Deco which usually refers to a period around 1920ish but Deco is not really about products and tech more just design and art. Of course Modernist was mostly about art and design as well; actually it seems to led directly into the Mid-Century era of the 50s-70s with the affection for Swedish Modern design. Swedish Modern has since been a design style that really has never gone out of favor or been a victim to trends.

Then with the 50s - 70s we had the so-called "Atomic Age" in design and creativity. Again a booming era. Of course that led to the profiteering era, aka 90s - '1x decades. Genuinely I don't thing we are seeing much in the way of evolving product right now.

[wannabee]

Originally Posted by ebusinesstutor

Maybe they should be suing Apple. The iPad is clearly a rip off of this!

Apple had something similar in the Newton but it stayed in the PDA camp too long and was in the too weird department for the main stream to take seriously back then. Which was quite a few years before the above mentioned prototype.

Spoiler:

How many of you bought an internet fridge so you can read the paper while standing in the middle of your kitchen?

[tubemonkey]

I went for the internet toaster

Spoiler: