I find myself again in a bit of a whimsical mood, so rather
than writing some sort of analysis of some science fiction series, I'm going to
write about how fiction pushes reality forward by encouraging real life
innovation based on fiction. On 1968,
Arthur C. Clarke wrote in his novel 2001:
A Space Odyssey, bout the Newpad, a tablet device that, even in outer space,
had access to encyclopedic texts on almost any topic and could in milliseconds
give all the headlines of every news publication. Of course, the popular
"fictional iPad" that everyone is familiar with is the Star Trek:
Next Generation tablet. This TV show, featuring one Captain Picard, began its
run on 1988, a year before the first commercially accessible pad-type device,
the GRiD Pad, was released on 1989. All of this is, of course, the foundation
of the tablet or cellphone you are reading this from.
