Are we 'in the future'

Bristol Pete

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Was discussing the past the other day. Got thinking about all of the things that have gone boomtime in the last ten years, specifically since 1996. Of course I am talking about zeitgeist for the 2000's such as

i-pod/mp3

Mobile

tiny cameras

camera phones

PSP etal

xbox360


Anyway, got thinking. Are we now seeing the fruits of our imagination, say from ten years ago.
Personally, if you had said that you can 'download' your entire CD collection to a machine no bigger than a match box, take it somewhere with you and listen to it via your hifi/source I would have laughed.

Likewise, same with the mobile, camera phones, digital cameras etc. I was just reading a review of a wifi digi camera...amazing.

The way I see it is that yes, these things are here and now, but they are the ongoing evolution of technology as I still recall my Sony walkman with a warm smile. Same thing when I think back to Mum and Dads poleroid camera - what fun....instant pictures.....:thumbsup: Project Gotham on the 360, move left, move right, brake, go - reminds me of Pole Position on my Atari.

So, are we in the future now, or indeed the past as you have read something typed just now. Finally, as someone who does not subscribe to stuff, T3 magazine and so on, what can we expect in another ten years

Jesus, I will be 44.:thumbsdow

Pete.
 
Well I'm 48 now Pete and I pre-date more stuff than you but think what it's like for my Dad who was born in 1921 :eek: I love showing him some of my new stuff and what it can do. I don't think they'd have freeview or a dvd player if I hadn't got one for them. Of course I'm lucky to have a 13yr old son to show me how the new stuff works.:confused: Life was just so much less complicated when I was young(er)
 
What comes is always different to what we expected, the Internet is an example, the lack of space flight is another.

Back in the 60s they thought we'd be living on the Moon and on Mars and sending space ships all over the solar system.

Haven't seen any predictions of the Internet though
 
We will never be in the future, reminds me of the Patent Commissioner, Charles H. Duell who in 1899 reportedly announced that "everything that can be invented has been invented."
 
MartinImber said:
What comes is always different to what we expected, the Internet is an example, the lack of space flight is another.

Back in the 60s they thought we'd be living on the Moon and on Mars and sending space ships all over the solar system.

Haven't seen any predictions of the Internet though

only reason we dont have casual space flight and moon houses is because commercially there just is no reason for it.......lol.....if corporations felt it was something that would make them millions of profit then they would have invested big time.......but what can the moon bring us? nowt apart from cheese ;-)
 
Captain Benefit said:
Anyway, got thinking. Are we now seeing the fruits of our imagination, say from ten years ago.
Personally, if you had said that you can 'download' your entire CD collection to a machine no bigger than a match box, take it somewhere with you and listen to it via your hifi/source I would have laughed.




This reminds me of watching "going live" (???) on a Saturday morning many years ago. It was April the 1st and Philip Schofield was showing a new gadget. This handheld gadget could store multiple CDs on it. You said the name of the song into the device it found it and played it. The week after they revealed that this was their April fools gag and obviously the gadget did not exist.
 
There are people who believe that we're not that tecnlologically advanced at all, and these new miracle inventions are made by extra-terrestrials. Fortunately, I'm not one of those people.
 
Toasty said:
We will never be in the future, reminds me of the Patent Commissioner, Charles H. Duell who in 1899 reportedly announced that "everything that can be invented has been invented."

Interestingly, he never actually said that. To quote Ms Nancy Adams of The University of Maine:

The book, "The Patent Office Pony: A History of the Early Patent Office", written by Kenneth W. Dobyns, contains information about this quote. It was attributed to the first Commissioner of Patents, Henry Ellsworth. The actual sentence that he wrote in the 1843 Annual Report of the Patent Office was, "The advancement of the arts, from year to year, taxes our credulity, and seems to presage the arrival of that period when human improvement must end." This has evolved through the years to, "Everything that can be invented has been invented", although he never actually said that. Dobyns also states that Richard Nixon, in his 1988 book, "Victory without War", attributed the erroneous statement to Commissioner Charles H. Duell, who also never said it.

It's just another one of those things that get repeated so many times by so many people that it becomes "true".
 
Nick_UK said:
There are people who believe that we're not that tecnlologically advanced at all, and these new miracle inventions are made by extra-terrestrials. Fortunately, I'm not one of those people.

Hmm, random :D
 
MartinImber said:
Haven't seen any predictions of the Internet though

This is a very good point - it's the things you don't see coming that often make the biggest impact.
 
we will be tommorrow
 

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