Gordon Brown tries his utmost to convince us iPod is British invention

Perhaps the Prime Minister thought he’d get away with massaging facts about the iPod during an interview on daytime TV, but a Register reporter (who obviously has more time to watch This Morning than I) has picked up on his faux pas.

Brown confidently proclaimed to viewers that the iPod was a British invention. “If you’ve got really innovative things, people will come to your country to locate,” he continued.

Great though the design of the iPod is (it got California-based British designer Jonathan Ive a CBE), it was invented by Tony Fadell from Michigan, which is quite clearly in the USA.

Funnily enough, Apple is an American company, which is why US citizens generally get all the cool new gadgets before the rest of us.

That’s not to say Britain hasn’t offered up or influenced a selection of tech-savvy individuals and companies — Alan Turing, Tim Berners-Lee, Psion, Last.fm, Bebo, SpinVox: well you get the idea. It’s a shame Gordon had to pick a gadget that’s extremely well known, but not British.

(Via Reg Hardware)

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