

Predictions of the Future From the 1960s - kkleiner
http://www.singularityhub.com/2011/07/19/hilarious-and-surprising-predictions-of-the-future-from-the-1960s-video/

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georgecmu
There was a short story written in 1968 that I read when I was a kid, and even
though the world described in it was utterly alien, its details stuck in my
memory. As time went on, whenever a new technology was introduced into every
day life, I would get the strangest sense of recognition. In any case, this
discussion has triggered my memory, and I was able to find the original story
online. Rereading it 20 years since, I recognize the underlying premise as
pretty naive and laughable, but I still marvel at how many details the author
was able to get right writing this piece 45 years ago:

[http://www.univeros.com/usenet/cache/alt.binaries.ebooks/10....](http://www.univeros.com/usenet/cache/alt.binaries.ebooks/10.000.SciFi.and.Fantasy.Ebooks/Mack%20Reynolds/Mack%20Reynolds%20-%20Criminal%20In%20Utopia.pdf)

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Yhippa
The democratization of technology has rapidly brought it to the masses in the
past two decades. Information is much more easily available and for the most
part free. I couldn't imagine trying to predict what is going to happen in the
next 50 let alone 10 years. Just like the iPhone several years ago surely the
next disruptive technology will come out of left field.

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joezydeco
Is the iPhone really an amazing new discovery that came out of nowhere?

I see it more as the result of inevitable cost reductions in recent technology
(fast/low power CPUs, capacitive screens, better LCDs, higher density
batteries/flash/RAM)...combined with a willingness to tell the phone carriers
to suck it and do a phone the way Apple wanted to do it.

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Florin_Andrei
Ever since the first Palm PDA came out, it was obvious that the iPhone was
going to happen. I was drooling for something like it back in '98 ... '99, or
whenever it was that I bought my first Palm. I was like, "okay, now let's
combine this with a cell phone, and add more CPU, and more memory, and a color
screen, and..."

Alas, it was not to be, yet. But then it did happen.

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joezydeco
Well, you can go back farther to Alan Kay's Dynabook (1968) to predict the
iPhone. (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynabook>)

Even Jobs has wanted to make a Dynabook from the early days
(<http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Pirate_Flag.txt>).

There was also the crew from UIUC that won Apple's "Design the Computer of the
Year 2000" back in 1987. Their design? A tablet.

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Florin_Andrei
> the crew from UIUC that won Apple's "Design the Computer of the Year 2000"
> back in 1987. Their design? A tablet.

Star Trek TNG also featured imagined tablets, and they started out roughly
around the same time. The design just makes sense, it's natural.

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briandear
I wonder if the global cooling predictions of the 1960s and 1970s should be
mentioned.

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ams6110
I see no evidence that we're any better now at predicting the climate long
term. There are still people saying we're on the cusp of another ice age, and
others saying we're in out-of-control warming.

