Back when people read magazines, I was reading one. The article was about new technology and this was late 90's/early 2000's. It described an interface where you could put a camera down on this flat screen, and it's contents would appear on the screen. You could drag them around with your finger, open up pictures and organize them. This was brand spanking new tech. Well before smartphones.
One of the first things I thought when I read that was, I will see kids at school with the "desk" from Ender's Game in my near future. Now every kid in school has a tablet. We live in a pretty crazy time of what's been imagined, and what's been realized.
Then again, this is all a simulation, soooo