Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Cult of Mac, Odds and ends, Found Footage
Seeing the future from the past
We'll be seeing a lot of predictions about the immediate future in the coming days. We're not immune here at TUAW and you'll 
likely get some predictions from your humble bloggers, but it is really interesting to look back and see how our current technology was (or was not) predicted in the past.
Here is a link to a talk by Nicholas Negroponte from 1984. At the time, Negroponte was head of the MIT Media Lab, and company CEOs were always taking their people there to see what the future might have to offer. This video is from the year the Macintosh appeared. Negroponte talked about touch screens, high resolution monitors, and the future of user interfaces. It is a fascinating presentation, and his predictions for the most part are right on target. It's almost 30 minutes long, but give it a try and I think you'll find it pretty eye-opening.
It isn't easy predicting the future. I remember seeing the General Motors film about the future done for the 1939 Worlds Fair in New York. Most of those predictions were wrong, and very 'Buck Rogers.' Robots doing housework, automated cars and a lot of other things that haven't come to pass, at least not yet.
Negroponte, who now is behind the One Laptop Per Child project, has had a very keen eye over time. Many of the things he predicted came to pass in products released by Apple, which have benefited users immensely.
[via Funky Space Monkey]
likely get some predictions from your humble bloggers, but it is really interesting to look back and see how our current technology was (or was not) predicted in the past.Here is a link to a talk by Nicholas Negroponte from 1984. At the time, Negroponte was head of the MIT Media Lab, and company CEOs were always taking their people there to see what the future might have to offer. This video is from the year the Macintosh appeared. Negroponte talked about touch screens, high resolution monitors, and the future of user interfaces. It is a fascinating presentation, and his predictions for the most part are right on target. It's almost 30 minutes long, but give it a try and I think you'll find it pretty eye-opening.
It isn't easy predicting the future. I remember seeing the General Motors film about the future done for the 1939 Worlds Fair in New York. Most of those predictions were wrong, and very 'Buck Rogers.' Robots doing housework, automated cars and a lot of other things that haven't come to pass, at least not yet.
Negroponte, who now is behind the One Laptop Per Child project, has had a very keen eye over time. Many of the things he predicted came to pass in products released by Apple, which have benefited users immensely.
[via Funky Space Monkey]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Raheem said 7:42AM on 12-30-2008
Either the human race is severely underachieving, or our aspirations always exceed our short term capability. Or both.
Reply
Carney said 9:23AM on 12-30-2008
I remember the ads that Avery Brooks used to do for IBM in 2000 saying "the new millenium is here and I was promised flying cars. Where are the flying cars?"
Newt Gingrich has made a good point that the pace of technological change between, say, 1900 and 1950 was dizzying compared to the pace of change since then, and points to massive increased government regulation in the latter period as discouraging risk-taking investment and innovation. The revolution in computers happened almost by mistake because it wasn't anticipated and regulated to death in its crib - innovation managed to leak out.
But it's not all government doing the wrong thing, sometimes it's government NOT doing the RIGHT thing. For example, in the heady days of the space program when NASA was doing something brand new and exciting each month, we figured the Moon by 1970, Mars by 1980, Saturn by 1990, and Alpha Centauri by 2000. But Nixon killed Apollo and all we ever did was the first part.
al said 9:57AM on 12-30-2008
The period between 1900 and 1950 was when government growth, intervention, and regulation increased the most: anti-trust legislation; the new deal; unions; massive increase in military spending (our default method for industrial planning); banking regulation; etc. Economic growth actually continued well past 1950 (to 1970?) and regulation has decreased since about 1980, so it looks like regulation is good for economic growth.
al said 10:00AM on 12-30-2008
I'm not sure why I typed "economic growth" instead of "pace of technological change", but the argument is the same.
sdemo said 10:05AM on 12-30-2008
Speaking of the future... can anybody fore-see when new models or revisions of iPod will be released?
Reply
Vihung said 11:20AM on 12-30-2008
> ... Robots doing housework, automated cars ...
Admittedly, we do not see robots doing housework in the way they imagined back then - with anthopomorphised bipedal metal people standing upright with two eyes, ears a nose a mouth and hands and arms, but so much of our housework is automated - mechanically and electronically - and computerised to a fine detail. washing machines, dishwashers, refrigerators, microwave ovens, central heating pumps, air conditioning and thermostats all existed in the 50s, but so much of their function is now so finely controlled by microprocessors
Likewise for automated cars - so many things that used to be mechanical and failure prone are finely controlled by computers - from the timing of the engine, fuel pumps, oil flow to new things like airbags, stability control etc. What about cruise control, distance control, parking assist, lane departure warnings and guidance.
Sounds pretty science fiction to me
Reply
Zimmie said 4:43PM on 12-30-2008
And don't forget actual household robots like Roombas. They aren't terribly common yet, but they're selling quite well and becoming much more widespread. Home automation systems and computerized appliances are also pushing this in a direction most people 10-15 years ago didn't expect.