A tablet computer that looks remarkably like an iPad seems to spring up on a weekly basis.
But this device, also hailed as the future of home computing, was made 17 years ago.
Called The Tablet, it provided a glimpse into tomorrow’s world that was incredibly accurate.
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- Look familiar? ‘The Tablet’ as introduced in a 1994 promo video, 15 years before the iPad was released
A 1994 promo film released by technology firm Knight-Ridder talks about ‘taking today’s newspaper into the electronic age’.
Even more astounding, with the benefit of hindsight, of course, is the video’s assertion that consumers want acomputer that doesn’t come with a manual.
Roger Fiddler, who founded Knight-Ridder in 1992, talks of ‘building a bridge of familiarity’ with the public.
Nowadays, Apple has fulfilled that maxim – it is literally a case of turning an iPad on.
The release of the iPad last year has fulfilled tech firm Knight-Ridder’s mission statement of what a tablet computer could provide
Mr Fiddler says in the video: ‘All forms of media that we know today will be transformed in the next ten to 15 years.’
That prediction, made in the mid-1990s, has proved startlingly correct.
The iPad was released to phenomenal demand in 2010 – 16 years after Mr Fiddler introduced The Tablet.
Taking an introductory route, the video’s voiceover says: ‘It might be difficult to conceptualise the idea of digital paper, but we think that’s what’s going to happen.’
The Tablet was created by a team of journalists, designers and researchers.
It was never released, and was instead developed to show the media industry what the future of news consumption could hold.
Portable: The Tablet was created by a team of journalists, designers and researchers. It was never made available to the publicThe voiceover promises: ‘Tablets will be a whole new class of computer.
‘They will weigh under 2lbs; they will be totally portable; they will have a clarity of screen display comparable to ink on paper; they will be able to blend text, video, audio and graphics all together; and they will be a part of our daily lives about the turn of the century.’
Apart from the weight – iPads weigh around 1.4lbs – the Tablet really was 16 years ahead of its time.
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