Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

Douglas Adams described the namesake of the famous 1979 British sci-fi book "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" "like a small, thin, flexible lap computer." Earlier, it was mentioned as "a sort of electronic book" that "tells you everything you need to know about anything."

Parallels can be made to Amazon's Kindle, which debuted in 2007 with a lifetime of free, built-in 3G wireless networking and access to a dictionary and Wikipedia. Later versions tacked on international 3G as part of the deal, letting travelers access that data on the go.

Amazon filed for a design patent on its second-generation Kindle reader in 2009, later having it issued near the end of 2010.

In its appearance in the 2005 film adaptation of Adams' book, the device appears more like the ill-fated Microsoft Courier, along with the upcoming Sony S2 Android-based tablet.