In 2006, when the Disney Channel Original movie Read It and Weep first aired I remember thinking how cool it would be to have a computer that you could interact with the screen and even write on it. I did a lot of research on it, thinking that one day I would try to obtain such innovative technology. Four years later, in 2010, the world was introduced to Apple's tablet computer: the iPad, and in 2013 the idea of the tablet seems nearly trivial. Millions of people have access to this technology in which you directly interact with a screen to operate the device.
In the ProQuest database, there is a publication researching interactive software that would recognize patterns. It mentions the tablet as using "handwritten input." Project Muse had an article about the start of the act of writing itself, and it spoke about a much earlier tablet, simply a tool to write on. JSTOR had long publication that mentioned tablets and computers in one process, but it really didn't seem like it related to the modern tablet computers.
The New York Times has a story about Microsoft bring in their "Top Talent" with a vision to create a tablet in 1999. It says that it is a task that Microsoft had been looking at for nearly three decades, and that the end goal was to create a "portable, wireless, keyboardless device [that] would be the size of a writing tablet and be intended to serve most of a person's everyday computer and Net-surfing needs." The Chicago Tribune had a very different idea of a tablet, reporting on a device that was used as a tool for the blind.
The earliest mention of a tablet computer with the closest idea to today's tablet computer is in the story from The New York Times. It seems to be describing a lot of the features of tablets like the ones put out by Apple, Microsoft, etc. This shows that the idea of a tablet computer has been along for a quite a while before companies really made it work. It's funny to think in 2006 I thought of it as such a futuristic technology, because just a few years later they are everywhere.
4 comments:
Taylor,
It is interesting that you were able to reflect on wanting a futuristic device and see how others were envisioning this device at the same time as you were. I actually remember wanting a tablet like they used in Read It and Weep too!
Its also interesting to see the different ways in which it was thought that these technologies could be used for. I wonder how they thought that tablets would be helpful for the blind before they were developed.
Overall I think it was insightful to see the development of the ideas of the computer tablet and see what it has come to today.
Nice work!
I love that you introduced your topic with the reference to Read it and Weep. When I saw that movie I wanted a tablet computer too!
I thought it was very interesting that you found references to the tablet in 1999. I didn't realize that they were already investing time and money into researching it.
I do have a question after reading this post. What are the dates for the ProQuest and JStor articles you read? It would be interesting to know the date in order to compare the different styles between the early tablets and the iPad.
It's interesting to read how much the tablet has changed. I know when I watched Read it and Weep I wanted it to be the stylus version she had, but now I can't imagine the tablet being different from the iPad.
The tablet was a good choice and your research was very interesting!
@Katie: Thanks, Katie!
@Rachael: Thanks, Rachael! The ProQuest article is actually way back from 1977--it is just a really broad reference to the idea of being able to interact with the technology, like the tablet. And the JSTOR article is from 1994.
@Katie: Thanks, Katie!
@Rachael: Thanks, Rachael! The ProQuest article is actually way back from 1977--it is just a really broad reference to the idea of being able to interact with the technology, like the tablet. And the JSTOR article is from 1994.
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