It is either courageous or foolhardy to predict changes in technology.

I came across an example of this the other day in the August 1968 issue of the National Geographic, in an article about crystals (electronics) by Kenneth Weaver and James Blair, on page 294. Based on discussions with "industry leaders", they suggested four advances in electronics.

At department stores, clerks will take your personal identification card, put it in a slot connected by computer to local banks, and transfer money from your account to theirs. A phone line, actually, but very accurate.

In homes, terminals linked to a master computer will run your household, controlling your appliances. You will be able to phone in to start the oven. No suggestion of Bluetooth technology meaning that the appliances can talk to each other. Intelligent or smart homes is the usual term for what is still an infant technology.

Books from the local library will be reproduced on a screen in the home, having been recorded on magnetic tape, and newspapers will be printed out from a machine in the home. The power of digital media had not been foreseen with Google Books and the like, and most people in the UK at least get updated news from the Web, or read free daily papers piled up at stations.

Lastly, cars will have a computer "no bigger than a teacup" to control the ignition and the dashboard instruments, and radar will monitor the distance to the next car, sounding a warning if they are too close. I scoffed at the idea that radar would be used, but apparently this concept is already available in some cars, and is called adaptive cruise control.

An example is the illustrated Adaptive cruise control system by Hitachi (left).

And when did they think these ideas would become reality ? Writing 40 years ago, these industry leaders, talking up the ideas, thought once large-scale chips appeared "some years hence".

Steve Van Dulken is a world-renowned expert on inventions and how they relate to businesses. You can read more of Steve’s writing on the British Library website.

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By Steve Van Dulken  on   Oct 10,2008

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Keywords

technology    phone    bluetooth    inventions    patents    cars   

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