We'll have flying cars in five years...

[Libertas1776]

Well, at least according to Back to the Future: Part II...that and hovering skateboards by Hasbro. (Sorry if I got your hopes up :evilgrin:)



Why is it that people from the not too distant past always believed the not too distant future would be a world away from theirs, meaning futuristic and advanced and a wonder to behold. Of course, I'm not saying our distant future won't be a world away from our own, but I don't think it will be futuristic and a wonder to behold. Probably more like dystopian and underwater.

Can you think of some other futuristic predictions for the not so distant future that have never come to fruition?


(P.S. can you pick out some future prediction misfires from this issue of USA Today: 2015 Edition. Pfft! as if there will even be newspapers by 2015...hey, I just got one misfire. Ha ha,...oh, now I'm sad:()

[Gman2]

1. And we will need to reduce work hours to like 5. With same pay.

The idiots that portray the future, always portray it as human centric. Humans are like a virus in the future. A democratic afterthought.

[Mojambo]

2. "Queen Diana will visit Washington"

Yeah, not so much.

[Berry Cool]

3. Well, obviously, Queen Diana

and the Cubs sweeping the World Series. I mean, the Cubs are never gonna sweep the Series.

:rofl: But seriously, sweeping the Series in 5, which doesn't make sense under any prediction. You can sweep a five-game series in three, or a seven-game series in four, but five?

(Edited to add: Perhaps they were anticipating that by 2015, MLB would've gotten greedy enough to extend the World Series to nine games. I grant, that's possible. Of course, they'll also extend the lengths of the Division Series and League Championship Series, and we'll eventually be watching guys play baseball right into December, in blizzard conditions.)

[MindPilot]

4. I don't think Diana will be Queen...

[Canuckistanian]

5. "Swiss Terrorist Threat"!

:rofl: :rofl:

[onehandle]

6. 'Swiss Terrorist Threat' Only a matter of time.

They don't like the foreign types (unless they are depositors).

As the world opens and they strive to become even more isolationist, I predict an uptick in extremism in Switzerland.

[el_bryanto]

7. On the other hand in 1990 was the I-Phone predicitable?

Bryant

[MindPilot]

13. I think those are the "thumb bandits"

text gangs, or "textas"

[MindPilot]

8. If Palin wins in 2012,

she would probably announce that "she's tired" in about 2015.

[Berry Cool]

14. I was gonna say that!

:rofl: If not by the end of 2013!

[MindPilot]

20. this thread is rife with GMTA moments

[immoderate]

9. I remember seeing flying cars on the covers of Popular Science and Mechanics Illustrated...

...when I was a child in the '50s. They always seemed to be "right around the corner."

Now, I wonder if they'll ever sell a flying car to someone on the "no fly list."

--imm

[MindPilot]

15. Can I talk on a cell phone while driving my flying car?

[immoderate]

19. Autopilot.

--imm

[Berry Cool]

32. Only if you wear your headband like they had in Back to the Future Part II,

in which the phones were portable but everyone wore them kind of around their necks and put them up on a headband to talk/listen.

[krispos42]

25. Somebody recently developed a flying para-sail car

Looks like a dune buggy mated with a parachutist...

http://www.popularmechanics.com/automotive/new_cars/4332920.html

[Deep13]

10. Can't wait for slamball playoffs! nt

[Berry Cool]

42. Then you'll thank me for this:

http://www.slamball.net/

[Gman]

11. Randall Graves on The Flying Car

The Flying Car On Youtube

[TrogL]

12. Artificial Intelligence

I got in a screaming match with my GPS the other day 'cause it wanted me to take a detour across a public park.

Craftygal thinks I'm having an affair with Mandy.

[CraftyGal]

18. Hmmmm I thought it was Bob... n/t

[TrogL]

33. That's probably Garmin - I've got a Tomtom

[CraftyGal]

24. Hmmmm I thought it was Bob... n/t

;-) :*

[TrogL]

37. oh, THAT Bob

I...errr...*blushes*...didn't know you knew about him.

[Skidmore]

16. Shoot....people can't afford the ground driven clunkers. Why

would something like this be anything more than a rich man's toy--especially a first model out.?

[Libertas1776]

40. +1

[krispos42]

17. Well, the easist thing to improve upon has been electronics

So that's where an awful lot of development and expansion has been. Not so much in energy-creation or energy-storage, which is what we need to get practical flying cars. Or cheap flights to space.

There was lots of room for shrinking the size of computer chips and lots of room for putting those chips in society, too. Flying cars would be an evolutionary step, gradually replacing ground cars as time ground on. But the electronics revolutions... damn, I already have to explain to my 5-year-old about how in "Home Alone" cell phones were new, bulky, and horrendously expensive, and that's why Kevin's parents didn't have them. :-)

[LeftinOH]

21. A $6.00 **newspaper** in 2015? They were way off on that one -n/t

[krispos42]

26. Heh... wait and see

:scared:

[Brother Buzz]

22. Crazy dude up the road from me already made one

It actually kinda works but the government (FAA) requires he test fly it tethered to the ground. He's been working on it for close to forty years but his latest round of legal troubles appear to have finally put the kibosh on it ever going into production. That, and a few unresolved technical problems.



http://www.moller.com/

[Berry Cool]

23. Actually, while most future predictions are amazingly overextended or bizarrely shortsighted

(look at how many futurists failed to imagine things like no Soviet Union after 1991), some are incredibly prescient.

One of the best examples is the series of 1990s AT&T "You Will" ads that promised us a bunch of future technologies would soon come to us, courtesy of them. Well, in the ensuing years, many of them have--some in ways even the ads didn't anticipate but are still more or less true.

One good source for looking at these is here:

http://www.kickerstudio.com/blog/2009/02/atts-you-will-ads-15-years-later/

As they pointed out early last year, we have most of the technologies promised:

* “Have you ever sent a fax from the beach?” WiFi/WAN. Done.
* “Have you ever crossed the country without stopping to ask directions?” GPS navigation systems. Done.
* “Have you ever borrowed a book from thousands of miles away?” The internet. Done.
* “Have you ever paid a toll without slowing down?” I’d say we’re about halfway there now.
* “Have you ever bought concert tickets from a cash machine?” Hmm, no. Add to the To Do list. Although, buying them online is probably easier.
* “Have you ever attended a meeting in your bare feet?” and “Have you ever learned special things from far-away places?” and “Have you ever tucked your baby in from a phone booth (!!!)?” Videoconferencing. Done. Although phone booths are mostly a thing of the past now.
* “Have you ever opened doors with the sound of your voice?” Nope, although pretty feasible.
* “Have you ever carried your medical history in your wallet?” Not exactly, but perhaps outside the US this is a reality.
* “Have you ever watched the movie you wanted to the minute you wanted to?” Video on demand. Done.
* “Have you ever checked out at a grocery store one cart at a time?” I’m guessing this is via some sort of RFID tags/reader combination. Not there yet. Give it three years.
* “Have you ever had an assistant who lives in your computer?” Software agents. Nope, not there yet either. Again, give it three years.

[Libertas1776]

38. Good points n/t

[TrogL]

39. You can pay tolls without slowing down now, buy movie tickets from a kiosk

They've got an RFID thing you attach to your car and automatically gets scanned on the way through.

The local theatre has kiosks where you can buy tickets and food vouchers, avoiding lineups.

[Berry Cool]

44. I think what the original writer was trying to say is that you can get RFID-scanned at a toll booth

but you still have to slow down to get it done. Yes, it's faster than having to actually interact with a human being and pay money, but you still have to pause for a bit before moving on.

Movie tickets are one thing for kiosk sale, but I don't know if we'll ever see it done for big live shows. But buying concert tickets over the Internet is actually easier and more efficient than doing it from a kiosk, which is the only reason I think we won't see it. You can do it from your house at 3 a.m. if you want. Or an iPhone anywhere.

[crispini]

51. Not in my cityl

Tolltag! Pay your toll at 65 mph! Pretty crazy huh? They're doing it now, though. :D

What I'm looking forward to -- paperless boarding cards. American is trialing it now Just show them your boarding card on your iPhone. Ding!

[Berry Cool]

53. Oh well, I guess some places are more sophisticated than the New York Thruway.

Seems that people still have to slow down with EZ Pass.

I do like the idea of paperless boarding, even if I don't have the technology for it yet. I DO like being able to print my own boarding passes, either at home or at the airport.

[RockaFowler]

27. Some of the headlines are great

Pitcher Suspended for Bionic Arm Use
Thumb Bandits Strike
Kelp Price Increase (this is really funny because I remember in the 80's we thought Kelp was the answer to everything - esp here in Florida)

[marginlized]

28. Don't forget the Landrush in Lunar Real Estate

Another and perhaps opposite aspect of future "sight" is the tendency to see the future only in terms of current technologies. Alvin Tofler's "Future Shock" contained not one word about computers.

Oh, then there's the Singularity.

[MindPilot]

29. "Via compu-fax satellite"

The Internet is most definitely something that has evolved beyond what anyone envisioned.

[MindPilot]

30. Well the really obvious one is time travel... n/t

[Orrex]

31. Nice post, butthead.

[Libertas1776]

34. Why don't you make like a tree...

and get outta here? ;)

[Berry Cool]

46. LOL, you beat me by a minute.

I guess I owe you a Coke. A FUTURE Robot Coke:

[Libertas1776]

I think I'd prefer a future Pepsi

[Berry Cool]

54. Hey, buddy, if you wanna Pepsi,

you're gonna have to pay for it!

[Libertas1776]

55. Alright, then, give me a Tab

Tab? I can't give you a tab unless you order something.

[Berry Cool]

35. Why don't you make like a tree

and get out of here? :rofl:

[MadBadger]

36. We already have flying cars

[damntexdem]

41. Hopes up? All we need are drunk drivers in flying cars.

And imagine the mischief that could be done on hovering skateboards.

;-)

Yeah, sure, they laughed the same at early automobiles. But then, look at the problems automobiles have caused us.

[Jokerman]

43. "Cubs Sweep Series In 5"

Yea right.

[Bluenorthwest]

45. I don't think the makers of Back To the Future "believed" the

near future would be like that. I think they had a story to tell for fun. Why would you think they 'believed' that? The film was not made as a prediction, but as an entertainment.

[Berry Cool]

47. Well, of course not. It's just fun to observe how many of their 2015 visions

seem likely to come true on schedule and others not, or not ever.

[hayu_lol]

48. Shoot, had the flying car about 60 years ago...

wings unbolted from the body, prop stayed with the body(pusher).

More room inside than these hi-tech bodies shown on this thread...probably better milage as well.

[Odin2005]

49. Oh shit "President Says SHE'S Tired"? OMG, PSYCHO SARAH IS PRESIDENT!!!

:scared:

[Libertas1776]

50. Wow, an unrec

Am I hitting some hot buttons that I am unaware of? :shrug:

[MindPilot]

52. I think some one has written a script to unrec everything.

I kicked ya back up to zero.

[Libertas1776]

56. Thanks n/t