{"id":11411,"date":"2007-09-04T09:13:23","date_gmt":"2007-09-04T16:13:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2007\/09\/04\/we-have-met-the-future-and-it-still-has-no-jet-packs.html"},"modified":"2014-11-06T08:24:52","modified_gmt":"2014-11-06T15:24:52","slug":"we_have_met_the_future_an","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/09\/04\/we_have_met_the_future_an.html","title":{"rendered":"We have met the future and it still has no jet packs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fun article from 1979 (cough<\/em>highschoolgraduationcough<\/em>) about what the future would look like<\/a> — especially regarding those “computers.”  Aside from the funky outfits, what all from “The electronic household” hasn’t (or has) come to pass (bearing in mind this was couched as “being developed for people to buy in the 1980s”)?<\/p>\n

1.  Giant-size TV. Based on the design already available, this one has a super-bright screen for daylight viewing and stereo sound system.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Check!   Large-screen TVs (compared to the late 70s) are standard commodity items, as are stereo jacks for same.<\/p>\n

2.  Electronic video movie camera, requires no film, just a spool of tape.  Within ten years video cameras like this could be replaced by 3-D holographic recorders. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Partial check!  Except for film buffs, nobody shoots on film any more.  But, sorry, nobody’s yet come up with commercial-grade (let alone consumer-grade) holographic videos.<\/p>\n

3.  Flat screen TV.  No longer a bulky box, TV has shrunk to a thickness of less than five centimetres.  This one is used to order shopping via a computerized shopping centre a few kilometres away.  The system takes orders and indicates if any items are not in stock.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Partial check!  Flat screen TV took a bit longer than the 80s, and it’s just becoming a commodity item here in the 00s, but it’s definitely what’s happening.  Shopping via TV, though?  Not so much (at least not in the “think I’ll buy some oranges and a new sweat shirt” kind of thing).<\/p>\n

4. Video disc player used for recording off the TV and for replaying favorite films. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Check!  DVDs (and their embattled successors) are still solidly esconced as playback devices, though video-on-demand keeps being talked about more and more seriously.  Ironically recordable DVDs for TV shows and the like have been hampered by anti-piracy brouhaha and the introduction of the DVR, which has hop-skipped over recordable DVDs in most of their function.<\/p>\n

\n

5. Domestic robot rolls in with drinks.  One robot, the Quasar, is already on sale in the USA.  Reports indicate that it may be little more than  a toy however, so it will be a few years before ‘Star Wars’ robots tramp through our homes.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

No check!  Aside from some cutsie vacuuming bots, robots have not yet made inroads into most households.  Will they?  Better AI, better manueuverability, and a compelling function beyond “rolling in with drinks” all seem necessary.<\/p>\n

6. Mail slot. By 1990, most mail will be sent in electronic form.  Posting a letter will consist of placing it on front of a copier in your home or at the post office. The electronic read-out will be flashed up to a satellite, to be beamed to its destination. Like many other electronic ideas, the savings in time and energy could be enormous.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 Check!  Though this is a classic case of “right outcome, utterly wrong mechanism.”  The idea of handwriting (or perhaps even typing) letters and sending their scanned images as a form of e-mail is … amusing.  Conversely, the unexpected idea that we’d all be swamped with e-mail and it would be, itself, a huge sink of time and energy, is somewhat less amusing.<\/p>\n

Other predictions from the article:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Two-way TV, as noted, has never quite taken off (or hasn’t yet).  The expansion of the PC and the Internet has removed 95% of the need for it, and there hasn’t yet appeared the “killer ap” to justify it, nor has there been a groundswell behind its current incarnation, the media center PC.<\/li>\n
  2. Video phones have never done it, either.  Heck, even with peer-to-peer video conferencing\/chat, it’s still much more the exception than the rule.<\/li>\n
  3. Telecommuting, even without “TV-telephones,” has become a lot more possible and popular, though the article fails to have predicted the social consequences and managerial push-back on same.  Still, working from home would be even nicer if we actually had one of those robots who “rolls in with drinks” on command.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    <\/p>\n

    (via GeekPress<\/a>)<\/p>\n

    <\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Fun article from 1979 (coughhighschoolgraduationcough) about what the future would look like — especially regarding those “computers.”  Aside from the funky outfits, what all from “The electronic household” hasn’t (or has)…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[20,372],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hi-tech","category-star-wars-media-movies"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4692,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/07\/18\/for_that_which.html","url_meta":{"origin":11411,"position":0},"title":"For that which we are about to receive …","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 18-Jul-03 5:40pm","format":false,"excerpt":"My old Akai receiver finally gave up the ghost. A bunch of the functions have stopped working -- like volume, and balance, and changing what it's receiving. Which seems like...","rel":"","context":"In "Hi-Tech"","block_context":{"text":"Hi-Tech","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/hi-tech"},"img":{"alt_text":"Look! It's so purty!","src":"\/blog\/images\/RTDVD1.jpg","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6159,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/05\/04\/touch_the_vote.html","url_meta":{"origin":11411,"position":1},"title":"Touch the vote","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 4-May-04 9:49pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Electronic voting just got a major setback in California. California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley ended five months of speculation and announced Friday that he was decertifying all electronic touch-screen...","rel":"","context":"In "Hi-Tech"","block_context":{"text":"Hi-Tech","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/hi-tech"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":49122,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/01\/02\/back-to-the-future-is-now.html","url_meta":{"origin":11411,"position":2},"title":"Back to the Future Is Now","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 2-Jan-15 6:41pm","format":false,"excerpt":"A fun look at the tech of Back to the Future 2, which is set in (gasp) 2015.(h\/t +Asbj\u00f8rn Grandt) Originally shared by +Robert Walker: I watched Back to the Future Part II today, because it's the future now. It was actually pretty fun to compare the 2015 shown in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/antique_shop2.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/antique_shop2.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/antique_shop2.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":49314,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/01\/22\/hear-the-mighty-engine-roar-now-in-stereo.html","url_meta":{"origin":11411,"position":3},"title":"Hear the Mighty Engine Roar! (Now in Stereo!)","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 22-Jan-15 9:23am","format":false,"excerpt":"That mighty rumble, purr, or deep-throated roar of your uber-sexy muscle-car-pickup-vehicle ... may be being \"enhanced\" by sound files played through your stereo system.On the one hand, it seems so goofy as to be laughable. It's arguably deceptive, but not in a way that affects the actual performance or mileage.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8671,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/09\/10\/design_for_drea.html","url_meta":{"origin":11411,"position":4},"title":"Design for Dreaming","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 10-Sep-05 2:10pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Faboo commercial film from 1956, showing what life was going to be like Real Soon Now. Produced to bring the 1956 G.M. 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Gary was...","rel":"","context":"In "Media & Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Media & Culture","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11411"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46915,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11411\/revisions\/46915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}