"It's a tabula rasa when you start in countries that have not been capitalist, " says Cloherty.

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Tabula's founder, Steve Teig, previously launched four other technology companies, two of which he took public.

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At the time of his space flight, Garriott worked at MMO publishing giant NCSoft on the science-fiction MMO Tabula Rasa.

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The landmark contract came last year when Intel started making chips for Achronix and Tabula, and more recently the publicly traded firm Altera.

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The term Blank Slate comes from a translation of the medieval Latin tabula rasa, implying a smooth tablet or a mind unmarked by experience.

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Intel recently agreed to make some chips for Altera, and already had in place some smaller deals to fab for Achronix Semiconductor, Lilliputian Systems, Netronome Systems, and Tabula.

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Shroud of the Avatar is being created by a company called Portalarium that Mr Garriott set up after the failure of an online game called Tabula Rasa that he helped to develop.

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And the iPad mini is virtually a persona tabula non grata among that crowd -- regardless of possible differences in build quality, camera quality, screen size or the absence of ads.

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"Tabula rasa, " in the Latin expression: blank slate.

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Tabula rasa, all to the good.

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