iPads From Our Futures Past

Apple loves to sue people and companies that even hint at coming close to imitating their stuff. The latest prolonged battle targets Samsung, whose Galaxy Tab is said to be a "slavish copy" of the iPad. In response to several legal defeats, Samsung is slightly modifying the Galaxy to prevent anyone from possibly confusing it with an iPad. Not that anyone would have.

If you are at all interested in the legal machinations, check out THIS article from Mashable.com.

Samsung, to their corporate credit, has come up with a novel defense that might just work in the courts. Samsung claims that the "look and feel" of an iPad has been around quite a while, as we see in this clip from Stanley Kubrick's SciFi masterpiece, "2001, A Space Odyssey":

And that's not all.  Consider Star Trek's various "Padd's":

and.....

And even from the Original Series!

Yup...there's nothing new under the various suns in the Star Trek universe.

Oh, by the way, there's a tablet out there that doesn't get much mention, but I think was truly the original, forming the basis of a lot of things we deal with today:

Top that, Apple!