But the Internet has no Dewey decimal system... (1995)

With search engines acting as such a necessary tool for internet use in 2009, we sometimes must remind ourselves that they did not come pre-packaged with cyberspace.

The 1997 book Predicting the Future looked at past and contemporary predictions of the future and assessed their accuracy. A 1995 prediction by Bill Gates about "the internet as a self-publishing medium" was met with great skepticism due to the lack of editors and, believe it or not, a Dewey decimal system on the web. An excerpt from the book appears below:

The lack of an equivalent to the Dewey decimal system on the Internet is a different matter. While it is true that experienced Internet users can eventually find what they're looking for, [Clifford] Stoll and other critics insist that it takes more expertise and time than Internet enthusiasts are willing to admit. This point of contention may eventually be answered by software developments that are still just blips on the horizon. But such a development, according to many experts, including both Internet boosters and doubters, is likely to have to await a formalized method for paying royalties to those who self-publish on the Internet. Bill Gates is sure this can be managed down the line, but as things stand there are still vast legal tangles to be resolved concerning payment to original authors whose work is published by major companies, let alone compensation for self-publishing.

Previously on Paleo-Future:
The Internet? Bah! (1995)
The Answer Machine (1964)
Bill Gates on Charlie Rose (1996)

The Millennium Bug (1998)

The 1998 book The Millennium Bug by Michael S. Hyatt is pretty pessimistic about mankind's future, given the "Y2K problem." Ironically, Mr. Hyatt blogged more recently about cynics who are pessimistic about the future. He says that real leaders "look on the sunny side." Priceless turnaround.

As ridiculous as the hysteria over Y2K may have been, it was certainly more palatable than the current "2012" nonsense. Whatever happened to being afraid of a good, old-fashioned robot uprising?

My favorite warning from the front cover of the book says that the "illusion of social stability is about to be shattered . . . and nothing can stop it." If this is even remotely true, why buy this book? Do you feel as if you're living with the "illusion of social stability"? Might we all crack in a moment's notice? Does every generation feel so special as to believe they live in the End Times?

The rest of the supposed "catastrophic results" of the Y2K bug were outlined on the book's back cover:

• Social security checks will stop coming.
  
• Planes all over the world will be grounded.
  
• Credit card charges will be rejected.
  
• Military defense systems will fail.
  
• Police records and emergency communications will be inaccessible.
  
• There will be massive, long-term power failures.
  
• Bank funds will be inaccessible.
  
• Insurance policies will appear to have expired.
  
• Telephone systems will fail to operate.
  
• IRS tax records and government funds will be unavailable.
  
• The Federal Reserve will be unable to clear checks.
  
• Time security vaults will fail to open or close on time.
  
• Traffic signals will fail to function.
  
• Office systems will fail and your employer will go out of business. [ed. note: This seems rather specific. My employer will go out of business? It's as if you're pointing directly at me through this book. How did you do that, magic book?]

Read more:
The Robot Rebellion (1982)
Final Date of the Earth: August 18, 1999 (1973)
The Prophetic Year 2000 (1968)
The 1980s: Countdown to Armageddon
Nucelar War to Start September 12, 2006
Nuclear War Revisited (2006)
Apocalypse Soon (1980)

Cornucopia (1993)

According to the company Empruve, this futuristic multimedia device from 1993, "will become as much an integral part of our lives as the telephone, the television, the typewriter and the book." The photo and its caption (below) were found in the book Understanding Hypermedia.

According to Caruso.com the developer costs for Empruve's Cornucopia were between $4,000 and $5,000.

Advanced multimedia systems will become as much an integral part of our lives as the telephone, the television, the typewriter and the book. "Cornucopia" demonstrates how ergonomic a multimedia system can be. The system uses DVI technology and a CDROM drive, and combines an A4 paper white screen and a colour screen (for stills and motion video) with a new control device called a "tadpole."

See also:
Starfire (1994)
GTE's Classroom of the Future (1987)
Motorola's 2000 A.D. (1990)
Pacific Bell Concept Video (1991)
Connections: AT&T's Vision of the Future (1993)
Flowers by Alice (1992)
Apple's Knowledge Navigator (1987)
Apple's Grey Flannel Navigator (1988)

"Broadband" by Australia Telecom (1992)

The 1992 Australia Telecom concept video, Broadband, taught us about Orwellian biometrics, 1980s music video catwalks and beeping user interfaces of the future. All three parts appear below.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

See also:
Australia Telecom's Broadband (Part 1, 1992)
Australia Telecom's Broadband (Part 2, 1992)
Australia Telecom's Broadband (Part 3, 1992)

The Internet? Bah! (1995)

Waxy.org has a link to a February 27, 1995 Newsweek article stating that this whole Internet thing is a bunch of hype. Author Clifford Stoll proclaims, "no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works." You can read the piece in its entirety here. Excerpts appear below.

Every voice can be heard cheaply and instantly [on the Internet]. The result? Every voice is heard. The cacophany more closely resembles citizens band radio, complete with handles, harrasment, and anonymous threats. When most everyone shouts, few listen.

. . . Nicholas Negroponte, director of the MIT Media Lab, predicts that we'll soon buy books and newspapers straight over the Intenet. Uh, sure.

These expensive toys are difficult to use in classrooms and require extensive teacher training. Sure, kids love videogames--but think of your own experience: can you recall even one educational filmstrip of decades past?

We're promised instant catalog shopping--just point and click for great deals. We'll order airline tickets over the network, make restaurant reservations and negotiate sales contracts. Stores will become obselete. So how come my local mall does more business in an afternoon than the entire Internet handles in a month? Even if there were a trustworthy way to send money over the Internet--which there isn't--the network is missing a most essential ingredient of capitalism: salespeople.

See also:
The Answer Machine (1964)

Impacts of Robotic Sex (1997)

After reading Gizmodo's interview with a technosexual I thought it was as good a time as any to look at an article from the July-August, 1997 Futurist about sex with robots.

Joel C. Snell wrote a piece called, "Impacts of Robotic Sex," which describes many of the same reasons for wanting a robotic sex partner as Zoltan does in the Gizmodo article. Alimony, disease, and a sense of shifting cultural norms all lend themselves to a tone of inevitability in both pieces. The more tomorrow changes, the more it stays the same. The Futurist magazine article appears below in its entirety.

(The robot to the right is a painting my girlfriend, Malorie Shallcross, did for Valentine's Day.)

Robots that provide sexual companionship are likely to become common in the future. Prototype models have already been reported from Japan.

The future "sexbots" will have humanlike features and will be soft and pliant, like the latest dolls for children. Sexbots will contain vibrators to provided love talk.

Sexbots will be disease free; they won't judge one's sexual performance, and they won't say no. They will never have a headache or demand alimony.



They could certainly alter human relations. Here are a few potential impacts of sexbots:

Marriages may be destroyed by sexbots. A husband chooses sex with the sexbot, alienating his wife; the jealous wife destroys her sexbot rival and sues the manufacturer.

Individuals may change gender orientation. Heterosexual people may use a same-sex sexbot to experiment with homosexual relations. Or gay people might use other-sex sexbots to experiment with heterosexuality.

Robotic sex may become addictive. Sexbots would always be available and never say no, so addictions would be easy to feed. People may become obsessed by their ever faithful, ever pleasing sexbot lovers and rearrange their lives to accommodate their addictions. Eventually, support groups will likely form.

Technovirgins will emerge. An entire class of humans may emerge who not only will never have sex with other humans, but won't even desire it.

Robotic sex may become "better" than human sex. Like many other technologies that have replaced human endeavors, robots may surpass human technique; because they would be programmable, sexbots would meet each individual user's needs.

Would electronic and robotic sex reduce teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, abortions, pedophilia, and prostitution? The jury is still out on these implications. However, boundaries, barriers, and beliefs will be challenged.

See also:
Civilized Adultery (1970)
Headlines of the Near Future (1972)

Australia Telecom's Broadband (Part 3, 1992)

Today we have the third and final installment of the 1992 Australia Telecom concept video, Broadband. Enjoy.

See also:
Australia Telecom's Broadband (Part 1, 1992)
Australia Telecom's Broadband (Part 2, 1992)

Australia Telecom's Broadband (Part 2, 1992)

Part 2 of the 1992 Australia Telecom concept video Broadband demonstrates teleconferencing via videophone, as well as encrypted data transfer.

Oh, and scary metal walkways of the future. Don't forget the walkways.


Stay tuned for part 3, coming soon.

See also:
Australia Telecom's Broadband (Part 1, 1992)

Australia Telecom's Broadband (Part 1, 1992)

The 1992 Australia Telecom concept video, Broadband, envisions the futuristic world of 1996. Part 1 shows us videophone conferencing, moving large amounts of data between computers, as well as (Orwellian) biometric scans.

See also:
Motorola's 2000 A.D. (1990)
Pacific Bell Concept Video (1991)
Connections: AT&T's Vision of the Future (1993)
Flowers by Alice (1992)
Apple's Knowledge Navigator (1987)
Apple's Grey Flannel Navigator (1988)
Vision (Clip 1, 1993)
Vision (Clip 2, 1993)
Vision (Clip 3, 1993)
Starfire (1994)
GTE's Classroom of the Future (1987)

Motorola's 2000 A.D. (1990)

We learned a lot from our look at the 1990 Motorola concept video 2000 A.D. Specifically, we learned that every concept video needs a businessman who must be bothered while on the beach. We learned about the politics of radio spectrum allocation. And we learned about moustaches, don't forget about the moustaches.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

See also:
2000 A.D. (Part 1, 1990)
2000 A.D. (Part 2, 1990)
2000 A.D. (Part 3, 1990)
Pacific Bell Concept Video (1991)
Connections: AT&T's Vision of the Future (1993)
Flowers by Alice (1992)
Apple's Knowledge Navigator (1987)
Apple's Grey Flannel Navigator (1988)
Vision (Clip 1, 1993)
Vision (Clip 2, 1993)
Vision (Clip 3, 1993)
Starfire (1994)
GTE's Classroom of the Future (1987)

2000 A.D. (Part 3, 1990)

Today, the thrilling conclusion to our Motorola saga of (paleo)future communications.

See also:
2000 A.D. (Part 1, 1990)
2000 A.D. (Part 2, 1990)

2000 A.D. (Part 2, 1990)

Part 2 of the 1990 Motorola concept video 2000 A.D. shows us the emergency medical response team of the future, as well as the moustache of the future. Stay tuned for the third and final installment.

See also:
2000 A.D. (Part 1, 1990)
Pacific Bell Concept Video (1991)
Connections: AT&T's Vision of the Future (1993)
Flowers by Alice (1992)
Apple's Knowledge Navigator (1987)
Apple's Grey Flannel Navigator (1988)
Vision (Clip 1, 1993)
Vision (Clip 2, 1993)
Vision (Clip 3, 1993)
Starfire (1994)
GTE's Classroom of the Future (1987)

2000 A.D. (Part 1, 1990)

The Motorola concept video 2000 A.D. was produced in 1990 and focuses on the fantastic wireless future. Part one appears below.

See also:
Pacific Bell Concept Video (1991)
Connections: AT&T's Vision of the Future (1993)
Flowers by Alice (1992)
Apple's Knowledge Navigator (1987)
Apple's Grey Flannel Navigator (1988)
Vision (Clip 1, 1993)
Vision (Clip 2, 1993)
Vision (Clip 3, 1993)
Starfire (1994)
GTE's Classroom of the Future (1987)

Transportation of the Future (1992)

The 1992 children's book Transport (Timelines) features this two-page spread of futuristic bicycle wheels, solar-powered cars, high-speed trains and fire engines with robotic arms.

See also:
The Future World of Transportation

Pacific Bell Concept Video (1991)

The 1991 Pacific Bell concept video that we looked at in pieces a couple weeks back imagines a world of communication much like that of Connections from AT&T. Parts one through three of this unnamed Pacific Bell video appear below.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

See also:
Pacific Bell Concept Video (Part 1, 1991)
Pacific Bell Concept Video (Part 2, 1991)
Pacific Bell Concept Video (Part 3, 1991)
Connections: AT&T's Vision of the Future (1993)
Flowers by Alice (1992)
Apple's Knowledge Navigator (1987)
Apple's Grey Flannel Navigator (1988)
Vision (Clip 1, 1993)
Vision (Clip 2, 1993)
Vision (Clip 3, 1993)
Starfire (1994)
GTE's Classroom of the Future (1987)

The End of the Future (1991)

In his 1991 book, Facing Tomorrow, author Thomas Hine opens with a decidedly pessimistic tone. The first chapter, "The End of the Future," expresses a feeling of betrayal that the world did not provide the future humanity was promised. An excerpt from that chapter appears below.

For at least two decades, no compelling, comprehensive vision of the future has captured the American imagination. Our culture is like a child raised without adults: We have no idea what we will be when we grow up. We don't know what to tell our own children, though we dimly suspect we are setting a bad example. We condescend to past visions of the future - the progressivist utopias of the turn of the previous century, the streamlined dreams of the 1930s, the jet age exuberance of the 1950s. But we have nothing to take their place.

Instead, our popular culture is filled with tainted dreams, manipulated horrific fantasies planted in the minds of innocents, which come true when Freddy Krueger, the sleep-invading slasher from the endless Nightmare on Elm Street movie cycle, comes to eviscerate the dreamer and most of her friends, relatives and neighbors. Today, we know all about what was wrong with the visions of the past and are, we tell ourselves, more realistic. But we are more limited, too. Besides, there's no evidence, outside of the movies, that a refusal to dream prevents nightmares from coming true.

When the world does not seem to be going your way, it is worth finding out which way the world is going. If progress seems self-defeating, it is time to come up with a new definition of progress. It's time for a new future, one that will enable us [to] make sense of the present and judge how the actions we take each day will shape tomorrow. We need to understand our past ideas of the future, in part so that we can understand the ways in which we have gone wrong. But we can't slap a new coat of paint on our old tomorrows. We need to conceive of our future new and whole, from the ground up. We have to examine our fears, to see if they are real, and our desires, to understand what we really want and what we can hope to get. Today, people become angry at the future because it is not going to provide what was once expected. We need a clearer idea of what we can anticipate, what we can achieve, what we can create, so that we can once again feel the exaltation of moving toward something we want rather than the bitterness of settling for less.

Progress to Counter Catastrophe Theory? (1975)
Going Backward into 2000 (1966)
Technology and Man's Future (1972)

Pacific Bell Concept Video (Part 3, 1991)

The third and final chapter of our untitled 1991 Pacific Bell concept video introduces us to the public videophones of the future, similar to those we saw in AT&T's Connections video from 1993.

See also:
Pacific Bell Concept Video (Part 1, 1991)
Pacific Bell Concept Video (Part 2, 1991)
Connections: AT&T's Vision of the Future (Part 4, 1993)
Connections: AT&T's Vision of the Future (1993)

Pacific Bell Concept Video (Part 2, 1991)

Part 2 of this unnamed Pacific Bell concept video has a visual voicemail feature (or in this case, audible voicemail) that iPhone users may find familiar.

See also:
Pacific Bell Concept Video (Part 1, 1991)

Pacific Bell Concept Video (Part 1, 1991)

This unnamed Pacific Bell concept video from 1991 is set in the year 2003. With a young woman giving birth as our main plot device, we're able to see how people of the 21st century will work, shop and communicate. Below is part 1 of 3.

See also:
Connections: AT&T's Vision of the Future (1993)
Flowers by Alice (1992)
Apple's Knowledge Navigator (1987)
Apple's Grey Flannel Navigator (1988)
Vision (Clip 1, 1993)
Vision (Clip 2, 1993)
Vision (Clip 3, 1993)
Starfire (1994)
GTE's Classroom of the Future (1987)

US West's Flowers by Alice (1992)

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

See also:
Connections: AT&T's Vision of the Future (1993)
Writer and Producer of Connections: AT&T's Vision of the Future
Apple's Knowledge Navigator (1987)
Apple's Grey Flannel Navigator (1988)
Vision (Clip 1, 1993)
Vision (Clip 2, 1993)
Vision (Clip 3, 1993)