I had a very similar Usborne World of the Future series "Future Science" book, which included desktop computers, retinal scanning locks, space colonies, telemedicine, three-dimensional television, and lots of ROBOTS.
There are some things, like videophones and holo-TV, that show up in science fiction just as shorthand signifiers of the future.
Videophones (second only to flying cars) are almost the canonical missed prediction, but it's not clear how missed they are. The usual line is that they've existed since the Sixties but nobody wanted them-- but that's not really all that true; sure, operating World's Fair demos of videophones existed in the sixties, but the infrastructure to actually have a videophone network wasn't there. It's all about the upstream bandwidth.
Of course now we do have personal videophones of a sort that work over the Internet, as well as those crappy videoconferencing machines, but they're not used very much on a daily basis even among people who have the broadband to use them. Sending a picture of you talking is of limited use, except for a few things, like phone sex, or letting Grandma see the kids. Even for teleconferencing, it's really much more helpful to have something like a live scribble board. So that's evidence in favor of the "nobody wanted them" claim.
On the other hand, cell phones with built-in cameras and screens that can transmit still pictures are fantastically popular now. This suggests an actual market for videophones: if you can carry them around with you and send video of stuff you see, suddenly the possibilities become more interesting. If the much larger bandwidth needed for live video is ever there, these camera phones might become videophones as well and then everyone will have them-- the only obstacle is technical. Whether people will usually leave the picture on is another matter.
Two pet peeves of mine are holographic TV and laser sidearms. Both of these technical developments would be a lot harder to swing than most people think they are, unless you just want a shoot-your-eye-out gun, or when you say "holographic TV" you just mean something that sort of looks 3D instead of a real hologram. But they frequently show up in stories set the day after tomorrow.
This was the beginning of the introduction to my thesis:
Moon colonies. Flying cars. Jet packs. Robot maids. Smart kitchens. Some things are instantly recognizable as predictions of the technology of the future. The closest of these to being realized in the present day is the smart kitchen; computerized kitchens have been "just around the corner" since long before the average person had ever seen a computer.
Flying cars will really never happen. too much regulation already for stuff that flies.
Laser guns would require a lot of power for anything really effective, and would be as dangerous to the user as to the victim. Projectile weapons such as good ol' fashioned present day guns, rail guns (and there are power issues there, too) (which are just an offshoot of a normal gun, except that the slug is accelerated to hyper sonic velocities, and possibly plasma based weapons would be a safer bet.
No one has figured out how to do a dynamic moving hologram, and "holo-projectors" are still too distant in our current tech level.
The bandwidth for doing video conferencing is here already: ISDN BRI (128K channel) can do videoconferencing but the hardware was rather expensive. I agree. Having attended video conferences, the interactive white-board idea works a lot better. Video conferencing is good for 1 to many broadcasts (like the CEO announcing some major thing) or two groups that are need to collaborate on something and they need a visual representation of both groups.
Cell phones with the bandwidth to do video streams are not on the board yet. maybe 4G or 5G might have them.
Holographic movies have been done as small-scale experiments; last I heard, the big problem is getting them to look good for more than a small number of viewers. There are also those silly cylindrical holographic stereograms that sort of animate as you move around them. But holographic video is about a zillion times harder. You'd probably be better off going for some less ambitious 3D technology, and if you don't want the viewer to have to wear glasses, you might be stuck with those parallax-barrier monitors that basically use the Blinking Jesus process.
I participated in a video conference with India once. The video was almost useless and the transmission lag made it difficult to have conversations. I don't know if it was going through a couple of satellites, or if the lag was somewhere else in the system.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2003-10-26 10:28 pm (UTC)I had a very similar Usborne World of the Future series "Future Science" book, which included desktop computers, retinal scanning locks, space colonies, telemedicine, three-dimensional television, and lots of ROBOTS.
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Date: 2003-10-27 12:08 am (UTC)Videophones (second only to flying cars) are almost the canonical missed prediction, but it's not clear how missed they are. The usual line is that they've existed since the Sixties but nobody wanted them-- but that's not really all that true; sure, operating World's Fair demos of videophones existed in the sixties, but the infrastructure to actually have a videophone network wasn't there. It's all about the upstream bandwidth.
Of course now we do have personal videophones of a sort that work over the Internet, as well as those crappy videoconferencing machines, but they're not used very much on a daily basis even among people who have the broadband to use them. Sending a picture of you talking is of limited use, except for a few things, like phone sex, or letting Grandma see the kids. Even for teleconferencing, it's really much more helpful to have something like a live scribble board. So that's evidence in favor of the "nobody wanted them" claim.
On the other hand, cell phones with built-in cameras and screens that can transmit still pictures are fantastically popular now. This suggests an actual market for videophones: if you can carry them around with you and send video of stuff you see, suddenly the possibilities become more interesting. If the much larger bandwidth needed for live video is ever there, these camera phones might become videophones as well and then everyone will have them-- the only obstacle is technical. Whether people will usually leave the picture on is another matter.
Two pet peeves of mine are holographic TV and laser sidearms. Both of these technical developments would be a lot harder to swing than most people think they are, unless you just want a shoot-your-eye-out gun, or when you say "holographic TV" you just mean something that sort of looks 3D instead of a real hologram. But they frequently show up in stories set the day after tomorrow.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-27 12:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-27 12:55 am (UTC)Laser guns would require a lot of power for anything really effective, and would be as dangerous to the user as to the victim. Projectile weapons such as good ol' fashioned present day guns, rail guns (and there are power issues there, too) (which are just an offshoot of a normal gun, except that the slug is accelerated to hyper sonic velocities, and possibly plasma based weapons would be a safer bet.
No one has figured out how to do a dynamic moving hologram, and "holo-projectors" are still too distant in our current tech level.
The bandwidth for doing video conferencing is here already: ISDN BRI (128K channel) can do videoconferencing but the hardware was rather expensive. I agree. Having attended video conferences, the interactive white-board idea works a lot better. Video conferencing is good for 1 to many broadcasts (like the CEO announcing some major thing) or two groups that are need to collaborate on something and they need a visual representation of both groups.
Cell phones with the bandwidth to do video streams are not on the board yet. maybe 4G or 5G might have them.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-27 01:10 am (UTC)I participated in a video conference with India once. The video was almost useless and the transmission lag made it difficult to have conversations. I don't know if it was going through a couple of satellites, or if the lag was somewhere else in the system.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-27 03:27 pm (UTC)