10 World-Changing Inventions That Were Total Rip-Offs

8. Apple Stole From Xerox

This may very well blow your mind, given the tech giant's reputation for providing totally genius unique pieces of technology that nobody else had even considered (with their recently-announced smartwatch a particularly outstanding exception to that rule), but Apple are actually not quite the ground breaking bunch you might think they are. At least, in some ways. It's true that Apple produced the first commercially available computer with a GUI €“ that's a graphical user interface, the way we all use computers nowadays by clicking on icons and the like with a mouse instead of typing commands in with a keyboard like it's War Games or something €“ they didn't actually come up with the concept themselves. So who did revolutionise computers? Why, it was Xerox of course! Yes, they're mainly known for the photocopier their company name has become synonymous with in the US, but for a while in the seventies and eighties they were looking to diversify. Their experimental PARC group came up with all sorts of kooky new inventions, including the first GUI-and-mouse operated computer. Then, one day, Steve Jobs visited...