Acorn had this tech in 1994
Wait just a minute! This guy wasn't even close to being first in the UK.
Nearly a decade earlier than the events in this story, Acorn Computers had already made their "NewsPad" device for the EU -- it had a colour touchscreen, mature OS with a large number of apps and all the features to make at least an iPad-class machine and a smaller phone version would have followed quite quickly.
But exactly as with this story, we can thank Mr. Blair for typical UK government short-sightedness, when he personally sold-out the UK school computer market which was dominated at the time by Cambridge-based Acorn, to Bill Gates and his Micro$oft empire. I have always wondered who promised who, what, for the PM to sell-out a successful UK company like that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Computers#NewsPad
http://atterer.org/sites/atterer/files/2010-04/acorn-arm/newspad.jpeg
Biting the hand that feeds IT
