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The 13 best sci-fi workplace tablets of all time
Long before the iPad, sci-fi movies and television predicted the advent of the tablet in the workplace.
It’s fair to say that yesterday’s science fiction played a significant role in shaping today’s technology. After all, without shows like The Jetsons filling the heads of geeky kids back in the 1960s and again in the 1980s with dreams of jetpacks and flying cars, we wouldn’t have full-grown geeks building prototypes of that same tech in 2011.
The same can be said for these 13 tablet computers cooked up by Hollywood over the years. Feel free to add in your own in our brand new comments section below.
Seamus Bellamy resides in Victoria, Canada with a Blackberry Playbook, Motorola Xoom and an iPad 2
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1 Star Trek
If Captain James T. Kirk’s Captain’s Log is any indication, humanity finally managed to develop a reliable handwriting recognition system by the 23rd century…
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2 Star Trek
…Of course, opinions on the optimum user experience may vary, as can be seen with communications officer Lt. Uhura getting things done without the aid of a stylus.
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3 Star Trek: Deep Space 9
By the time Deep Space 9 rolled around, the tablet had evolved into a PADD – the Personal Access Display Device. The PADD offered voice recognition, stylus or finger input, a virtual keyboard and the most convoluted graphical user interface ever.
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4 Total Recall
In the future seen in 1990’s Total Recall, everything’s bigger than it needs to be: The construction workers, Rekall’s enormous memory-implantation machinery and of course tablet computing devices the size of a compact car.
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5 Johnny Mnemonic
There’s nothing like a good book… especially when it contains a videophone and microcomputer like the one used by Karl the Street Preacher in 1995’s Johnny Mnemonic.
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6 Quantum Leap
For a handheld tablet with no screen or discernable user interface, Quantum Leap’s Ziggy Handlink sure did get the job done, pulling Sam and Al’s bacon out of the fire on more than one occasion.
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7 Minority Report
2002’s Minority Report featured tablets used for swapping files between computers, and better still, controlling a swarm of heat-seeking Spider robots set on hunting down Tom Cruise. Now that’s an application we can get behind.
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8 The Incredibles
Mr. Incredible’s tablet in The Incredibles isn’t that incredible. Offering facial recognition software (available to Android and jailbroken iOS users), and multimedia capabilities, the tablet of choice for super heroes can be picked up by anyone today.
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9 Caprica
It’s hard to beat a piece of paper for portability. On television’s Caprica, the best qualities of a dead tree and the productivity power of a tablet device combine for the ultimate in on-the-go productivity.
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10 Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The tablet in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is said to have sold better than the Motorola Xoom for two important reasons: First, it’s slightly cheaper. Second, it has the words "Don’t Panic" printed in large friendly letters on its cover.
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11 Sanctuary
It seems that the often under-appreciated Axiotron ModBook has found sanctuary in the hands of Dr. Helen Magnus on the Syfy’s Sanctuary. We guess it had to hide from the iPad somewhere.
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12 Iron Man 2
While Tony Stark’s transparent handheld computing wonder from Iron Man II might be able to hijack hardware and crank out some very respectable multimedia content, TabTimes is willing to bet that its screen would look terrible in direct sunlight.
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13 TRON: Legacy
Bruce Boxleitner is an actor’s actor. Why, his performance in TRON: Legacy is so convincing that you’d almost believe his tablet’s OS was user-friendly and well designed. Almost.
Analysis
George Jones has been writing about technology and reviewing hardware...
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Comments 2
I would say that the first appearance of a tablet device is probably the most important. Every other application in film is by defalt, a copy of the concept. So Kudos goes to Gene Roddenbery, in 1966, for exciting us all as young viewers and dreaming of outer space travel. OK, we'll settle for wireless tablets and "communicators" (no texting).
Next question? Where did he get the idea for a wireless device? Especially one that can diagnose disease. Perhaps from H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine", it is time for a re-read. Afterall, he wrote this novel in 1895.
Now, if we could only get or hands on some dilithium crystals, we can forget about all of this enegry business.
John J Caprice / Visualedtech
You missed a big one! (just one?). There is another one from the 60's admittedly a little after the first Star Trek device***, but the AWESOME thing about this incarnation is that it shows the portable wireless tablet being used recreationally (ie not really for work). It was in Arthur C. Clark's and Stanley Kubrik's 2001: A Space Odyssey. On the journey to jupiter, the two crew members (David Bowman and ??) are eating a meal and they each have their own tablet device (2 devices) sitting on the table next to them playing a video They play the video synchronized which admittedly is not an experience we generally observe on tablets these days and it also suggests that the device is not a computing device but rather just a portable video display. However, it is left to the imagination and my imagination sees these clearly as <imagination> versatile computing devices that, in this context, just happen to be used to view full screen video. The clincher is that they have other "screens" built into the wall nearby that they use on other occasions to view video but they choose to adapt their tablet computers to view the video because they are just such gosh darned convenient (and versatile) devices! </ imagination>
*** This Tablet incarnation just about ties the Star Trek device in terms of conception. That is, 2001 came out in April 1968 and probably took a year or two to make since it was a complex feature film -- that puts the 2001 conception of the tablet at least as far back as 1967 if not 1966 or 65!! Don't bet me wrong, I love Star Trek. I'm not trying to knock it. I'm just saying...