Wednesday, February 03, 2010

Arthur C. Clarke's 2001 Newspad finally arrives, nine years late

When he tired of official reports and memoranda and minutes, he would plug his foolscap-sized Newspad into the ship's information circuit and scan the latest reports from Earth. One by one he would conjure up the world's major electronic papers; he knew the codes of the more important ones by heart, and had no need to consult the list on the back of his pad. Switching to the display unit's short-term memory, he would hold the front page while he quickly searched the headlines and noted the items that interested him.Each had its own two-digit reference; when he punched that, the postage-stamp-sized rectangle would expand until it neatly filled the screen and he could read it with comfort. When he had finished, he would flash back to the complete page and select a new subject for detailed examination.
"If the analogy with the iPod and iPhone holds up, history suggests, then, that a hockey stick in iPad sales is unlikely to occur before fiscal 2012, which is beyond our forecast period."

BAD HARDWARE: Some 50 years later, but better ever than never.

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