Today, the grocery delivery battle is being waged between companies like Amazon, Walmart, Target, FreshDirect, and Instacart. But there once was a time when the most futuristic thing in food shopping was the car. Specifically, drive-in shopping like these stores from the 1920s.
Fox News has refused to air an ad for the short documentary film A Night at the Garden, according to a new report from the Hollywood Reporter.
What did people of the past think sports would look like in the 21st century? They imagined humans powerlifting an entire ton, hurdles that pop up taller as you move along the track, and swimming relay races with “dolphin style” moves against wave machines. At least that was the idea in this 1996 TV commercial for the…
Some of the most interesting predictions for the future don’t come from expert futurists or well-financed think tanks, they come from average kids. Today, we have video from the 1960s that features kids talking about their own vision for tomorrow. And it’s depressing as hell.
Last week, there was an interesting but subtle change in the way that Americans talk about the future. And it’s probably a sign of bad things ahead for technology.
A viral tweet about the 1960s TV show The Jetsons recently brought up a troubling question. Was Jane Jetson a child bride? The answer: Not quite. But it’s easy to see why people might be outraged.
The Disney nerd community recognized a sad anniversary yesterday. It’s been 20 years since the ride Horizons closed at the Epcot theme park in Walt Disney World. But there was one bright spot. People were able to share home videos of the beloved “extinct attraction” on YouTube.
Science fiction writers are professional future-dreamers, imagining worlds far beyond their own. With technology advancing at astronomical rates, real life feels more and more like sci-fi every day (for better or worse). So it’s fun to look back at those writers who, decades and even centuries ago, imagined what life…
The world is filled with amazing technologies, many that are so old we don’t even think of them as technologies at all.
Lawrence “Larry” Roberts, one of a small handful of people who can truly be called the grandparents of the internet, died of a heart attack on December 26 at his home in Redwood City, California. He was 81 years old.
Earlier this month we looked at predictions from kids at the turn of the 20th century. But what about more recently? Say, from the 1980s? Well, you’re in luck, because today we have predictions about the future from kids in 1984. And some of them are as dark and terrifying as you might guess for kids who were…
Have you watched the new Netflix movie Bird Box starring Sandra Bullock yet? It’s been divisive, with some people saying they love it and other people claiming that they hate it. But I absolutely loved it, and I have a theory about one of the most difficult questions of the entire movie: What are the monsters, exactly?
Do you need urgent medical care but are far away from a hospital? We’ll bring the hospital to you! At least, that was the futuristic idea behind this edition of the newspaper comic, Closer Than We Think. And while it still feels a long way off, there are signs that we’re slowly but surely moving into a direction where…
What did kids from the year 1904 think would happen by the year 1919 or even the year 2019? They imagined fancy airships in the sky, “automobiles for everything,” and wondrous house-cleaning robots. They even imagined trips to Mars by the year 1919. Seriously.
The robots are coming for our jobs, artificial intelligence is ascendant, and invisible programs are taking over our lives. “Automation” is the word that comes up in each of those contexts and plenty more. It’s certainly one of the looming concepts of Our Times—a business imperative, an economic driver, a utopian…
Making predictions is hard, we all know that. But there’s one field where prediction can be even more difficult than prognostication about the houses we’ll be living in and the cars we’ll drive—the kinds of jobs we’ll have. Experts are always trying to figure out where society is heading and trying to determine what…
On December 1, 2013, Americans watched a segment on 60 Minutes about Amazon’s plans to deliver packages by drone in just “four or five years.” Well, it’s officially been five years. And Amazon’s failure to make drone delivery a reality is a great reminder that PR promises from big tech companies are often not worth…
In the 1950s and 60s, Americans were fascinated by the idea of flying cars and jetpacks that would let people soar above the traffic. But it wasn’t just the average commuter who was supposed to benefit from these space-age technologies. Emergency responders like police and ambulances were going to take to the skies to…
