It's interesting to compare Gernsback's predictions from 1922:
"Gernsback was a pioneer in the field of radio and made a number of
predictions in his magazines about the future of its cousin:
television. In 1927 television wasn’t yet a practical reality in
American homes, and was still not imagined as a broadcast medium by
many. As such, he envisioned TV as more of a point-to-point
communications tool, though as early as 1922 he thought it might be
used for broadcasting baseball games like in the illustration
above."[1]
to E.M. Forster's from 1909:
"For a moment Vashti felt lonely.
"Then she generated the light, and the sight of her room, flooded with
radiance and studded with electric buttons, revived her. There were
buttons and switches everywhere - buttons to call for food for music,
for clothing. There was the hot-bath button, by pressure of which a
basin of (imitation) marble rose out of the floor, filled to the brim
with a warm deodorized liquid. There was the cold-bath button. There
was the button that produced literature. and there were of course the
buttons by which she communicated with her friends. The room, though
it contained nothing, was in touch with all that she cared for in the
world.
"Vashanti's next move was to turn off the isolation switch, and all
the accumulations of the last three minutes burst upon her. The room
was filled with the noise of bells, and speaking-tubes. What was the
new food like? Could she recommend it? Has she had any ideas lately?
Might one tell her one's own ideas? Would she make an engagement to
visit the public nurseries at an early date? - say this day month.
"To most of these questions she replied with irritation - a growing
quality in that accelerated age. She said that the new food was
horrible. That she could not visit the public nurseries through press
of engagements. That she had no ideas of her own but had just been
told one-that four stars and three in the middle were like a man: she
doubted there was much in it. Then she switched off her
correspondents, for it was time to deliver her lecture on Australian
music.
"The clumsy system of public gatherings had been long since abandoned;
neither Vashti nor her audience stirred from their rooms. Seated in
her armchair she spoke, while they in their armchairs heard her,
fairly well, and saw her, fairly well. She opened with a humorous
account of music in the pre Mongolian epoch, and went on to describe
the great outburst of song that followed the Chinese conquest. Remote
and primæval as were the methods of I-San-So and the Brisbane school,
she yet felt (she said) that study of them might repay the musicians
of today: they had freshness; they had, above all, ideas. Her lecture,
which lasted ten minutes, was well received, and at its conclusion she
and many of her audience listened to a lecture on the sea; there were
ideas to be got from the sea; the speaker had donned a respirator and
visited it lately. Then she fed, talked to many friends, had a bath,
talked again, and summoned her bed."[2][3]
"Gernsback was a pioneer in the field of radio and made a number of predictions in his magazines about the future of its cousin: television. In 1927 television wasn’t yet a practical reality in American homes, and was still not imagined as a broadcast medium by many. As such, he envisioned TV as more of a point-to-point communications tool, though as early as 1922 he thought it might be used for broadcasting baseball games like in the illustration above."[1]
to E.M. Forster's from 1909:
"For a moment Vashti felt lonely.
"Then she generated the light, and the sight of her room, flooded with radiance and studded with electric buttons, revived her. There were buttons and switches everywhere - buttons to call for food for music, for clothing. There was the hot-bath button, by pressure of which a basin of (imitation) marble rose out of the floor, filled to the brim with a warm deodorized liquid. There was the cold-bath button. There was the button that produced literature. and there were of course the buttons by which she communicated with her friends. The room, though it contained nothing, was in touch with all that she cared for in the world.
"Vashanti's next move was to turn off the isolation switch, and all the accumulations of the last three minutes burst upon her. The room was filled with the noise of bells, and speaking-tubes. What was the new food like? Could she recommend it? Has she had any ideas lately? Might one tell her one's own ideas? Would she make an engagement to visit the public nurseries at an early date? - say this day month.
"To most of these questions she replied with irritation - a growing quality in that accelerated age. She said that the new food was horrible. That she could not visit the public nurseries through press of engagements. That she had no ideas of her own but had just been told one-that four stars and three in the middle were like a man: she doubted there was much in it. Then she switched off her correspondents, for it was time to deliver her lecture on Australian music.
"The clumsy system of public gatherings had been long since abandoned; neither Vashti nor her audience stirred from their rooms. Seated in her armchair she spoke, while they in their armchairs heard her, fairly well, and saw her, fairly well. She opened with a humorous account of music in the pre Mongolian epoch, and went on to describe the great outburst of song that followed the Chinese conquest. Remote and primæval as were the methods of I-San-So and the Brisbane school, she yet felt (she said) that study of them might repay the musicians of today: they had freshness; they had, above all, ideas. Her lecture, which lasted ten minutes, was well received, and at its conclusion she and many of her audience listened to a lecture on the sea; there were ideas to be got from the sea; the speaker had donned a respirator and visited it lately. Then she fed, talked to many friends, had a bath, talked again, and summoned her bed."[2][3]
[1] - http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/predictions-from-the-f...
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_Stops
[3] - http://archive.ncsa.illinois.edu/prajlich/forster.html