iPad revolution predicted by smarty pants folk from 1994

Believe it or not, right around the time Ace of Base was burning up the charts with their hit single “The Sign” (LOL the 90s!), a group of researchers at a think tank set up by the Knight Ridder newspaper organization had the foresight to recognize and accurately predict how the technology and the web would shape the business of media in the 21st century.

“We may still use computers to create information,” the narrator in a recently unearthed 1994 video about the research says. “But we’ll use the tablet to interact with information: reading, watching, listening.”

As shocking as it may seem, the guy making most of the bold predictions in the video is not a media-observing blowhard named Jay Rosen or Jeff Jarvis — no, instead it’s Roger Fiddler, currently the Program Director for Digital Publishing at the University of Missouri.

Regardless of how we got here and who saw it coming, iPad cats from far and wide are thankful.

(via Gawker via Paleofuture)

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