In the comic strip "Dick Tracy," in my youth (the 1950s) and even earlier, the detective Dick wore a "two-way wrist radio." This, as well as the "communicator" used by the Enterprise crew on the TV show "Star Trek," was very similar to the cell phones we have today. Captain Kirk's communicator even flipped open like the cell phone that I carry.
However, later on Dick Tracy advanced to a "two-way wrist TV." This, I believe, we still don't have. Our cell phones and smart phones can send still pictures, and they can capture video; but I don't think they can send video.
And it was predicted long ago that one day we'd be able to see our caller on our telephone. Our ordinary phones don't do this (it requires too much bandwidth, plus it seems not many people want to be seen when they answer the phone wrapped in that just-out-of-the-shower towel). However, with Skype you can talk to and see your caller.
It was predicted long ago—again in my childhood--that one day you'd be able to hang your TV on the wall like a picture. Hey, we certainly have that, and TVs are hanging on the walls in millions of homes right now.
In a 1939 movie called "The Shape of Things to Come," the future (which I think was supposed to be in 50 years, hence 1989) showed everybody flying around in their own personal autogiro (the autogiro was, obviously, a dead-end invention which was sort of a cross between an airplane and a helicopter). That one seems kind of silly. How crowded the sky would be!
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
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