Matt Novak
1 HN recommender · recommended in 3 months, 2011–2012
13:23 · 960K views · Apr 23, 2011
A 1994 video from Knight Ridder showing a concept for a tablet newspaper with a rounded-corner rectangular touchscreen. It was reposted by Matt Novak of Paleofuture.
Cited during the 2011 Apple v. Samsung tablet disputes as prior art for the iPad's design.
4 comments from Hacker News
For the interest - video of the Knight Ridder Newspad (from 1994!), that was used as a prior design by the court. Very interesting, if a little too talkative this video
Few buttons, PDA. Tablet with news, Knight Ridder tablet. this video Icons finger sized in a grid. Well given we already had desktops, and given it's a handheld device, then it's insanely obvious to have fewer icons in a grid at finger size. Low resolution screen compared to our desktops, hey maybe we should have fullscreen as the default. Pinch to zoom, multiple sci-fi movies. Slide to unlock. Phones already had something called "unlock', and physical bolt locks already slide... So we make a visualisation of what amounts to a sliding latch when when have the touch screen, pure genius, nobody besides Apple could have thought of that, right? "Trade Dress" to stop competitors should also be entirely illegal unless there is no branding or logo on the phone, or the name is too similar or in some insanely small font. If it has "Samsung" written on it it's insane to argue that anyone would confuse these things. What if these rules applied to TVs, cars or bottles of perfume? Perhaps technically they do, but people have had such things for so long they don't think about them in that way. It's farcical that anything clearly identified as a different product on the box can be subject to such rules. Apple products are like a good classy restaurant or hotel chain. They take ingredients everyone has and put a lot of work into fit and finish, they make the customer feel special for a slightly higher price. And they have a dress code that permits only a certain crowd in there (app store approv
Judge also considers Fidler/Knight Ridder work from 1994 on tablets as prior art and believes overall value of Apple's design patents reg. tablets is rather low. see 1994 video at this video (from 2:21 you have your rectangular screen with rounded corners as a functional tablet from 1994)
There are many devices which look very similar to the iPad dating back to at least as far as the first series of Star Trek. And there's this electronic newspaper from 1994... this video