Paleo-Future

The November 15, 1959 edition of Closer Than We Think , (syndicated by the Chicago Tribune , written and illustrated by Arthur Radebaugh), p...

A June 29, 2006 Slate piece by Reihan Salam reflects on futurism and had some fascinating insights. An excerpt appears below. Even so, it...

The year 1950, (as we are wont to do with "round" numbered years), provided plenty of predictions of what the second half of the 2...

The June 15, 1930 Fresno Bee (Fresno, CA) published a piece about the year 2030 as envisioned by F.E. Smith , 1st Earl of Birkenhead. Super...

The 1963 U.S. Air Force film Space and National Security envisioned futuristic wars conducted in space. The clip above is taken from the f...

Last week the Internet Archive announced a partnership with NASA ( nasaimages.org ) which provides searchable access to video and still ima...

This video from 1987 imagines the Apple Computer company of the year 1997, (tongue planted firmly in cheek). I can't decide if the iPsy...

The Washington Post had an article on Sunday about the new Disney House of the Future. The piece touched on a lot of issues that involve po...

This past May I sat down with Joseph Corn, co-author of Yesterday's Tomorrows , to talk about past visions of the future. We chatted ove...

My girlfriend Malorie sometimes tells the story of a robotics video she watched in 8th grade Science class. One particular robot in this vid...

The 1979 book The Micro Millennium heralded the arrival of the microprocessor as a revolution that would forever change our lives. From the...

Joel Johnson over at BoingBoing Gadgets/BoingBoing TV has a great interview with futurist/artist/genius, Syd Mead . See also: Syd Mead Art ...

Yesterday's Green Bay Press-Gazette (Green Bay, WI) ran a short piece about the Paleo-Future blog: "It's been quite a journey...

The 1966 radio documentary 2000 A.D. looked at a number of different issues facing the people of the year 2000. Most of these issues, as we...

According to the company Empruve, this futuristic multimedia device from 1993, "will become as much an integral part of our lives as th...

This concept painting of a "mono-scoot" personal transportation device was done by Richard H. Arbib in 1965. It is featured in th...

The 2006 book Future Hype: The Myths of Technology Change by Bob Seidensticker is a fascinating read. From page 103: Schools have had a lon...

I was quoted today in the Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney, Australia) for a piece about the past and future of cars . An excerpt appears belo...

The November 2, 1958 edition of Closer Than We Think featured a "mechanized stadium." The stadium of tomorrow might very well be ...

Peter Van Wijnaerde recently emailed me and asked for my opinion on various paleo-futuristic topics. He was doing a presentation for the Br...

It is easy to forget (for my generation, anyways) that attempts to make language more efficient did not start with text-messaging. In a piec...

I take a lot of pride in providing material you can't find anywhere else on the internet. But there's an easy way to tell when I...

The August 20, 1967 Progress-Index (Petersburg, VA) ran a piece titled, "Hard Times Facing Joe Fan," about the overcrowding of sp...

It is astonishing how many predictions of the early 20th century assumed animals (that is, all animals) would eventually be extinct simply ...

The August 28, 1949 San Antonio Light (San Antonio, TX) ran this article and cartoon about the "brain wave" music of the future. ...

From the June 15, 2008 New York Times : Buckminster Fuller’s 1933 Dymaxion, a streamlined pod on three wheels, is one of the lovable oddball...

This Alex Tremulis -designed torpedo boat of the future appeared in the January 20, 1943 issue of Yank - The Army Weekly (New York, NY). Hi...

The August 2, 1959 Chicago Tribune ran this Closer Than We Think strip about personal flying platforms of the future. It's in an image...