the.com/tablets

The flat slab humanity invented twice: once for laws, once for Netflix in bed.

means Flat, portable slabs used for writing, recording, or—in the modern sense—a touchscreen computer larger than a phone but smaller than a laptop.

from From Old French 'tablete,' a diminutive of 'table,' which traces back to Latin 'tabula'—a board, plank, or flat writing surface. The word literally means 'little table,' and it has carried that sense of a flat slab for marking things down across millennia: clay tablets pressed with cuneiform, wax tablets scratched with a stylus, stone tablets carved with commandments. The pharmaceutical 'tablet'—a flat compressed disc of medicine—and the digital tablet both inherit that same ancient idea of something small, flat, and meant to be held.

first tablets
Sumerian clay slabs predate paper by millennia
Ten Commandments
history's most famous tablets shattered on arrival
medicine sense
pills called tablets since pressed-powder era
market crash
sales peaked 2014, then phones ate lunch
name origin
from Latin tabula, meaning a flat board
for instance

apple ipad — tablet device launched by apple in 2010, now dominates 28% of global tablet market

samsung galaxy tab — android tablet first released in 2010, second-largest tablet brand with ~20% market share

microsoft surface pro — hybrid tablet-laptop device launched in 2013, flagship 2-in-1 device with kickstand

amazon fire hd — budget tablet line from amazon launched in 2012, third most popular tablet brand

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