WHAT'S NEXT: INNOVATIONS IN NEWSPAPERS

In today’s Observer, the editor of The Guardian writes about the iPad.

He remembers the pioneering work done by Roger Fidler.

I did the same a few months ago in one of the first posts of my blog Tabletmania.

And I agree with Alan Rusbridger: Roger saw the iPad almost 20-year ago.

Alan talks about Aspen but, no, the Colorado headquarters of the Knight-Ridder Information Design Lab were always in Boulder.

Well, I would like to see the reaction of Jeff Jarvis, a columnist of The Guardian.

The editor loves the iPad, the columnist, Mr. Google, not really.

(Picture by Katherine Rose, illustration by Luis Grañena)

Today’s post is about the visionary Roger Fidler, and how he saw the Apple Tablet before than anybidy else,

Now that the Apple iTablet is coming, we must give the proper credit to the early vision of our friend Roger Fidler.

I meet Roger in the late 1980′s and since then we have shared the same hope: that one day, print newspaper will migrate to new digital platforms.

My “rubber newspaper” idea was inspired by his concepts and prototypes.

Roger was our host in New York’s Columbia University and at the Boulder’s Knight Ridder Information Design Laboratory, where one of my former students, Alvaro Moncada, had a fantastic summer internship.

Roger Fidler was a journalist and newspaper designer for 34 years and has been on the leading edge of online and digital publishing development since the late 1970s.

As program director for digital publishing at the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute (RJI), he coordinates digital publishing research projects and the Digital Publishing Alliance (DPA).

Here you can watch a 1994 video with his first Newspaper Tablet prototype.