reddit

“There you have it folks. The real inspiration for Apple’s game-changing iPod, courtesy of the world’s unluckiest Briton, Kane Kramer, 52 (not including the fifth Beatle). You see, in the dark technological days of 1979, Kramer saw a beacon of light in his IXI. Capable of playing a mind-busting 3.5 minutes of music, the IXI prototype was Kramer’s ticket out of obscurity. Sadly, when he couldn’t raise enough venture funding to renew the IXI patent in 1988, the device became the Zune of its time, and was largely forgotten. Fast forward to the present, when Apple, fresh from making year-over-year record profits with the iPod, needed Kramer something fierce to bail them out of a lawsuit jam with Burst.com.” source...