1979 prediction on a living room.

Run_to_da_hills

1979 prediction on a living room.

THey were not too far off on the TV screen size.



Vision of the future, from 1969 Japan

carbon nanotube

crazy stuff that .

kitakyushu

Cool pix.

They were pretty close on the predictions, but that's no great achievement really as I'm guessing all these things already existed in development form even in 1979. For example, unbelievably enough, you could actually already buy laserdiscs in 1978! :eek:

One thing they seemed to miss happening completely was the integration of all these various gadgets in the form of the personal computer.

Add to this their ETA's on when we could all enjoy these gadgets in our homes were wildly optimistic!

vektarman

I confidently predict that we'll soon develop a wristwatch that will have it's own built-in mini fax for instant communication...that should be awesome.

Solair

These old future-predictions always get a few things right and a lot of stuff very badly wrong.

They've certainly got the modern television design right, although it's actually far thinner than they predicted. 5cm would be pretty bulky compared to what we actually have now and the screens are as enormous as they predicted and online shopping is completely normal and growing rapidly.

They just underestimated the scale of it and the fact that it's not based at your local shopping centre or that it would open up a vast array of small retailers to global markets.

They always seemed to think that the video phone was going to be a major issue. It's never really taken off as a stand-alone device, despite the telephone companies' efforts over the years - nobody was ever willing to pay for the devices or for premium rate calls to video chat. It took off when it was part of your PC/Mac and totally free i.e. Skype.

They also didn't predict the biggest technology changes - mobile communications and widespread ultra-fast broadband (relative to the 1950s).

Domestic robots never quite took off either We just have those really stupid, noisy floor-cleaning robots the main purpose of which seems to be to entertain cats.

newmug

LOL at the domestic robot!

stabeek

Closely related: Ed Byrne did a great gag on Mock the Week once:

Tomorrow's World! I'm still waiting for my electrotechnodoitallwhatsit! You should have called yourselves Tomorrow's Bull****!

Bearhunter

What troubles me about these predictions - and I remember similar things on telly back in the day as well - was why they all thought we'd want to wear fecking jump suits. Jump suits (either pastel or silver) are a constant in these things.