The Future! - circa 1993

[Robert Maxwell]

Yeah, they were pretty close on a lot of that, even if they didn't quite get the terminology or exact mechanism right.

Personally, I'm glad videophones never took off. There is no way I want to have to look at someone every time I use the phone. I'll Skype when I feel like it, that's it.

Videophones are a sci-fi conceit that isn't really based on any real need in the market or technology. They've been feasible for decades, but the market doesn't exist because nobody has any particular desire or need to sit there and stare at an image on a video screen while they're talking to them. If you WANT to see who you're talking to, you talk face to face anyway; if you just want to exchange information conveniently without having to arrange a meeting, most people would prefer to text each other.

Here's a question: how come nobody predicted the municipal/social menace that is texting while driving? Could it be that science fiction writers the world over never imagined that their fellow human beings could possibly be that stupid?

Yeah, there's just no market need for videophones, as you said. Live streaming audio/video for prurient interests, though?

As for texting while driving, I think science fiction generally saw communication technology as becoming more featureful and complex, not less. Let's face it, texting is pretty low-tech compared to everything else we've got today. But it does have certain advantages: it can be deferred until you have time to read/respond, it's less work than sending an email on modern phones, and "text speak" has evolved so it's an efficient communications medium.

I think your hypothesis is right: who imagined people could be quite so stupid? We're supposed to be getting smarter, not dumber.

 

[Amaris]

Those videos make me terribly nostalgic.
The ones I remember most vividly are the tablet fax guy, and the kids picking out a movie to watch instantly. I remember thinking to myself, "just like on Star Trek!".

 

[Warped9]

Re: the faxing issue. Many folks have an all-in-one printer. I know with mine I can copy a document and email it straight to a recipient, all from the desktop. With the right AIO you can copy multiple sheets and email them in one message. Isn't that just as good or better than faxing? In both cases the recipient is getting a copy and not an original. With a fax the recipient is getting copies printed right away. With the email they just have to open the message and print at their convenience.

 

[sojourner]

^This is why I think the continued existence of faxing is amusing.

 

[RoJoHen]

Faxing for my job is more useful than email in some cases.

I work for a school, and I am often faxing transcript requests to registrars at high schools. Most high schools don't make their registrar's email address readily available, so rather than trying to hunt that down, it's just a lot easier to send the request to the school's fax number and have them give it to whoever is in charge of that kind of thing.

 

[Saturn0660]

Well, to be fair. Back then people didn't really know what "e-mail" was. So faxing was more inline with what people knew.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Yeah, they were pretty close on a lot of that, even if they didn't quite get the terminology or exact mechanism right.

Personally, I'm glad videophones never took off. There is no way I want to have to look at someone every time I use the phone. I'll Skype when I feel like it, that's it.

Videophones are a sci-fi conceit that isn't really based on any real need in the market or technology. They've been feasible for decades, but the market doesn't exist because nobody has any particular desire or need to sit there and stare at an image on a video screen while they're talking to them. If you WANT to see who you're talking to, you talk face to face anyway; if you just want to exchange information conveniently without having to arrange a meeting, most people would prefer to text each other.

Here's a question: how come nobody predicted the municipal/social menace that is texting while driving? Could it be that science fiction writers the world over never imagined that their fellow human beings could possibly be that stupid?

Yeah, there's just no market need for videophones, as you said. Live streaming audio/video for prurient interests, though?

As a spinoff technology, Skype and its cousins make a little bit of sense. Let's not forget, though, that that technology was originally developed for porn.

As for texting while driving, I think science fiction generally saw communication technology as becoming more featureful and complex, not less. Let's face it, texting is pretty low-tech compared to everything else we've got today. But it does have certain advantages: it can be deferred until you have time to read/respond, it's less work than sending an email on modern phones, and "text speak" has evolved so it's an efficient communications medium.

Necessity is the mother of invention, no its wife. The main reason text messaging has become so prominent is because it fills a communication necessity with a minimal amount of sophistication and a maximum amount of convenience. I actually feel like speech-recognition text messaging will eventually replace it before too long (for people who use virtual voicemail, it already has).

 

[RoJoHen]

I actually feel like speech-recognition text messaging will eventually replace it before too long (for people who use virtual voicemail, it already has).

But the beauty of texting is that you can do it silently at work while you should really be doing other things.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I actually feel like speech-recognition text messaging will eventually replace it before too long (for people who use virtual voicemail, it already has).

But the beauty of texting is that you can do it silently at work while you should really be doing other things.

Yup. That's really one of its advantages: it can be done quietly, quickly, and on the sly.

 

[B.J.]

Well, to be fair. Back then people didn't really know what "e-mail" was. So faxing was more inline with what people knew.

I had an e-mail address then.

 

[Meredith]

One thing that bugged me about the ads were that they were so dark, like they were expecting the sun to die off in the future, or like everyone was dressed for winter except for the guy at the beach.

 

[Amaris]

One thing that bugged me about the ads were that they were so dark, like they were expecting the sun to die off in the future, or like everyone was dressed for winter except for the guy at the beach.

Of course, after the fallout from all of the atomic wars!

 

[Saturn0660]

Well, to be fair. Back then people didn't really know what "e-mail" was. So faxing was more inline with what people knew.

I had an e-mail address then.

As did I. However, i'd say more people didn't have on then did.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

One thing that bugged me about the ads were that they were so dark, like they were expecting the sun to die off in the future, or like everyone was dressed for winter except for the guy at the beach.

Well...this might sound nuts, but do you think people at that time would've associated "future" imagery with Blade Runner? That movie was my first thought when I saw the commercials.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

One thing that bugged me about the ads were that they were so dark, like they were expecting the sun to die off in the future, or like everyone was dressed for winter except for the guy at the beach.

Of course, after the fallout from all of the atomic wars!

This is heavy.

 

[sojourner]

^You keep saying that. Is there something wrong with Earth's gravity in the future?

 

[FordSVT]

But it has been marginalized and "normal people" don't really use it. Everyone sends email now.

Most "normal" people never used fax machines, and while businesses certainly use them less than they used to, I would still think they are used very frequently, more so than scanning and emailing a .pdf is, for example. Industry, professional offices, etc. Pretty much any time anyone has to sign something pen-to-paper, it's copied and possibly faxed somewhere. My wife is a lawyer for a records and data management company, one of the largest in the world, in fact, and she says they have an entire group of about 20 people at her work that do nothing but send and receive faxed documents.

 

[wescrusherfan84]

i have and use a fax all the time and its even in my bedroom

prooth:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/casiocasiocasio/5938514600

 

[TorontoTrekker]

Videophones are a sci-fi conceit that isn't really based on any real need in the market or technology. They've been feasible for decades, but the market doesn't exist because nobody has any particular desire or need to sit there and stare at an image on a video screen while they're talking to them. If you WANT to see who you're talking to, you talk face to face anyway; if you just want to exchange information conveniently without having to arrange a meeting, most people would prefer to text each other.

I don't know about that - I maintained a long-distance relationship for a year and a half via Skype. We talked almost every night (and still talk about once every week or two). It's a useful technology, though it's not quite perfect - it does freeze up from time to time, and sometimes the sound is a little unclear, or isn't quite in synch with the picture. (This was most annoying when we were watching Battlestar Galactica and Lost together.)

Well, to be fair. Back then people didn't really know what "e-mail" was. So faxing was more inline with what people knew.

I had an e-mail address then.

As did I. However, i'd say more people didn't have on then did.

I had an email address as far back as 1985, but I was a math/computer science student at the University of Waterloo. I suspect we were a little ahead of the curve there.

I just came across this CBC news report from 1993 which is kind of amusing now:

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDxqfgIDvEY[/yt]

 

[Amaris]

i have and use a fax all the time and its even in my bedroom

prooth:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/casiocasiocasio/5938514600

That's a nice looking all-in-one, wes, and while I won't ask about the purpose of the toilet paper sitting next to it, I will ask what brand the printer is.