Another Milestone for Arthur C. Clarke. he invented the table computer.

Sir. Arthur C. Clarke

It's amazing how close Arthur C. Clarke called it.

If you notice in the image, he's having a video conference on an table computing device, so Clarke also predicted  iPad and FaceTime. 

The HAL the Computer AI is a cloud made from blade servers, too.
It dynamically shift load as it looses processors but starts to run slower and slower.


From: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110823/11451415633/samsung-cites-2001-space-odyssey-as-prior-art-tablet-design.shtml

In the ongoing silly patent battle between Apple and Samsung over the design of competing tablet computers, Samsung is pointing to some interesting prior art. It's claiming that the form factor was recognized well before Apple came up with the iPad design, by pointing to a clip from Stanley Kubrik's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Attached hereto as Exhibit D is a true and correct copy of a still image taken from Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film “2001: A Space Odyssey.” In a clip from that film lasting about one minute, two astronauts are eating and at the same time using personal tablet computers... As with the design claimed by the D’889 Patent, the tablet disclosed in the clip has an overall rectangular shape with a dominant display screen, narrow borders, a predominately flat front surface, a flat back surface (which is evident because the tablets are lying flat on the table’s surface), and a thin form factor.

Yeah, but without those "rounded corners..."


"Reading computer manuals without the hardware is as frustrating as reading sex manuals without the software."- Arthur C. Clarke