When clearing through some of my old books recently I stumbled across this little charity shop find I’d got a few years ago. At the time I was just fascinated with old books, but stumbling across it now this book has a new resonance for me. Having worked with Channel 4 for the last couple of years and more recently the BBC, television and the development of technology are subjects that are at the forefront of my mind everyday. The most fascinating section of this book is a double-page spread at the end, which gives us a vision of the future as it was at 1978:
Lets take a closer look and see how accurate we were back then…
1. Videos & DVDs… and today, Sky+
‘Videotapes and cassettes’ reared their tangly-ribboned heads as VHS and ‘Videodiscs’ revealed themselves as DVDs. So this little prediction was pretty spot on. But they hadn’t yet seen a future where we wouldn’t necessarily need physical media containers to hold and record onto, now we can simply record TV onto our Sky+ boxes and there’s no need for physical video libraries.
2. Video games and flatscreen TVs
A large flatscreen? Spot on. Although perhaps not quite so large in the average household. And ‘telegames’? Again, pretty accurate, but without the whizzy futuristic name of telegames.
3. Pay-per-view and VoD
“Thousands of programmes are stored at a central video library. To select one, a viewer drops a coin in a slot and dials a code”
Nice. And pretty accurate, but without the physical coin slot. Think pay-per-view on your digital TV service, micropayments for shows on itunes and even free VoD services we have now such as 4oD and iPlayer. I particularly like this lady’s outfit too.
4. Multi-platform content
“…a viewer presses a button on the TV and it prints out a recipe for a dish which has just been shown on screen.”
The functionality here makes me think of cross platform content – we don’t need to print out recipes for Jamie Oliver’s programme, we can just go to 4food on the Channel 4 website for recipes that accompany the series. Or even pressing the red dot on digital TV to get more content surrounding what you’re watching.
5. iPhone
Look at matey lugging around all that equipment to take to a carnival. Nowadays, he can do all of that with an iPhone. As for the girl leaving a message on a TV screen when everyone is out, not really sure where we’d see this nowadays. Perhaps at a footballers Cheshire mansion?
Beth tells me she has another book from this series somewhere at home, so expect a similar blogpost from her sometime soon…
Anna wrote this on 08.07.10 – 13 comments
It's filed in the future, television box
About the same time as the second ‘What the F**k is Social Media’ presentation was being bandied about, I remember wondering whether the huge usage stats therein were good or bad, and if we should be pleased that we lived in a world where billions of images, videos and words were being uploaded constantly. Purely from a time point of view, there is only so much a human can absorb in any one day, and so were we being smart by encouraging clients to add to the noise?At around the same time, I started reading about the real-world impact of this information abundance, and the scary realization that the cloud isn’t actually a fluffy, floaty cloud full of binary angels and heavenly code, but is a physical lump of hissing, whirring servers, dotted around the globe (although apparently they’ll soon mostly be in Iceland, where lower temperatures mean less cooling costs – genius idea, although imagine the mild panic when the next volcano erupts and takes the internetz away). Read more…
Ross wrote this on 30.04.10 – 3 comments
It's filed in the Design, Interesting, User generated content, future box
Fig 1: Ross, excited.
There is a ton of cool stuff flying around at the moment, and rather than attempt some kind of comprehensive mega-list, here is a snapshot of why I think 2010 will rock. Read more…
Ross wrote this on 06.01.10 – 3 comments
It's filed in the Industry news, Interesting, NixonMcInnes, future box
Incredible things are happening in the world, doncha think?
I was inspired hearing about the work that Practical Action do when we were there last week.
I was blown away to read about Dubai’s jinks.
I am excited about the machinations of big media and that simultaneous rebirth and endgame.
The tectonics of politics continue to grind away.
The world feels like it’s spinning faster and faster to me.
What future are we spinning towards? One future to familiarise ourselves with and think about is a harder, more challenging world.
Whilst the media coaxes us with messages of a recovery, there is a different dashboard to at least be aware of…
Ingredients for a different dashboard, to ’see’ a different future
- Take Umair Haque’s truer-than-ever macropalypse. (Short version: the economics and business practices of yesterday are totally broken and everything must change).
- Add John Robb’s mindblowing Global Guerillas journal and text book. (Short version: through precisely exploiting modern society and its networks and technology a ‘terrorist’ can generate an ROI inconcievable in yesterday’s world)
- Sprinkle some #collapsonomics and resilient futures, with hexayurts and all. (Short version: while some people speculate about a more volatile future, these guys are actually getting down to the nitty gritty of ‘what to do about a crazy future’.)
- And finish with a garnish of grassroots activism from Dan McQuillan’s link sharing on Twitter. (Short version: lots of different sorts of people around the world are being treated unfairly, and technology innovation and ‘groking’ can help them get their voice heard and their changes made, sometimes…)
In my view our job as citizens and co-workers and as a company and family members and whatever context is to create better futures for ourselves and the world. If you agree, and that’s something you are interested in, in doing a good job, then you should prepare yourselve for a variety of futures, including this harder one too.
Personally, I am optimistic. But whatever the future, it definitely isn’t going to be easy.
Will McInnes wrote this on 01.12.09 – 3 comments
It's filed in the Business, Democracy, Social networks, future box
