Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Past futures on display


Walter Cronkite's voice defined the age I grew up.  He told us about everything from wars to human being's first steps outside of the Earth.  What he said, we believed.  Below are a couple of fascinating video clips from 1967 showing the vision of the world in 2001.  Of course, Walter Cronkite (who was a ham radio operator by the way) guides us through the vision of the future just to make sure all these wacky ideas were believable... and trust me; at the time, these were some very wacky ideas.



OK.  So they got a few things wrong... like knobs instead of graphical user interfaces etc, but they also got a lot right.  Some of it is so right that you don't even notice it... big screen color TVs.  "Flat" screens for the computers (if you look, they are simulating this by using CRTs that are embedded into the wall).

My questions to you are:  
  • Today, could we paint as clear a picture of what the world will look like in 45 years?  
  • What is the best way to share this vision with the world?  
  • If we don't have Walter Cronkite telling us how things will be in the future, will we believe in it enough to actually create it?

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