I haven’t seen Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey in years, but I’m kind of curious to go back and watch it again because of this: Samsung, in defending itself against charges that it stole the design for its Galaxy tablet from Apple’s iPad — along with the idea for some of its smartphones from Apple’s iPhone — is charging that Steve Jobs actually didn’t come up with the tablet design idea himself, thus he and Apple can’t claim to hold a patent on it. Rather, the Korean tech giant contends that Jobs ripped the idea straight from Kubrick’s movie.
Here’s the scene in question. Notice the flat, rectangular screens on the table next to the astronauts while they’re eating…
Reports Wired:
According to Samsung, director Stanley Kubrick had the idea for tablet computers about four decades ago, in the 1968 sci-fi epic, 2001: A Space Odyssey. A clip from the film (available on YouTube, Samsung hastens to add), shows astronauts eating while watching a TV show on flat, personal computers.
The Galaxy Tab maker argues that Kubrick’s forward-thinking tablet has, “an overall rectangular shape with a dominant display screen, narrow borders, a predominately flat front surface, a flat back surface (which is evident because the tablets are lying flat on the table’s surface), and a thin form factor.”
“It would be amazing if the court agreed with Samsung that this constitutes prior art for that particular iPad-related design patent,” writes FOSS Patents author Eingestellt Mueller. “Whether or not Samsung will succeed, the mere fact that they proffer this kind of evidence is remarkable.”
Apple is trying to have Samsung devices — such as the Galaxy S, the Infuse 4G, the Droid Charge and the Galaxy Tab 10.1 — removed from store shelves around the world. Steve Jobs needs more money to build his space ship headquarters in Cupertino, apparently. Come to think of it, I wonder if he got the idea for that from Kubrick as well?
Do not f*ck with The Steve, you guys. I bet when he invented these devices he stood back, admired his work and diabolically thought, “I feel like Stanley Kubrick…this is some visionary sh*t.”
(Gif via Topher Chris)