You see, the thing is that, in order to make the future happen, you need to have people in the present to work on it. So if you happen to invent machine-induced hibernation, just don’t tell anyone. [XKCD]
Internet shopping, online banking, self-diagnosing circuits, individual computers; this was surprisingly advanced stuff for 1966. More »
Nostradamus? Pah! A mere vague amateur. The late, great Arthur C. Clarke was not only more of a man of science, he was also a man capable of pretty accurately predicting the future. We’ve previously noted his ability to predict GPS in 1956. Just eight years later, he was nailing the concepts of teleworking and the Internet. More »
Brian David Johnson has one hell of a cool job: He’s one of Intel’s official ‘futurist’ soothsayers, and his ‘Tomorrow Project’ has brought together notable science fiction authors to write plausible fiction based on Intel’s research. The best part is you can download the stories for free. Writers involved this year include Douglas Rushkoff (of Life Inc. and Digital Nation fame), Ray Hammond, Scarlett Thomas, and Markus Heitz. More »
After questioning the purpose of futurising the technology in the new NBN education video this morning, PC & Tech Authority editor Nic Healey flung me a message on Twitter pointing me to this historic documentation of what Broadband would offer Australia back in the heady days of 1992. You have to watch it. More »
More dispatches from At&T’s eerily prescient vision of the future, all the way from the 90s. Here, the simple problem of needing an ingredient for a meal is solved with some cool retrofuturistic tech, replete with cheesy bleeps and boops. More »
