In the late 1980s, Apple created a few concept videos about a device they called the Computer Knowledge Navigator . These videos came up recently when Apple unveiled the iPad, because the machine in the videos is a tablet computer. But that's about all the iPad has in common with this conceptual device. Instead, a new startup launching at TechCrunch Disrupt today, Qwiki , is much more like the futuristic computer in the videos. To be clear, Qwiki isn't a piece of hardware. Instead, it's a piece of software meant to run on the web and as an app on mobile devices. What it does is present to you data about millions of topics in an extremely interesting and visual way. Imagine if someone created a movie highlight reel of Wikipedia pages -- that's sort of what Qwiki is like. You search for something -- a topic, a person, etc -- and Qwiki talks to you, telling you all you need to know about what you searched for, while also showing you key things about the subject or person.