What happens when scientists and futurists predict the year 2000… in the 1960s? In Popular Science, Walter Cronkite chronicled the state of science and technology in 1967 to project what life might be like in the 21st century. Cronkite and the prognosticators actually got a lot of it right… and some of it they got very, very wrong.

Everyone knew the moon landing was imminent, but why didn’t we ever get networks of road magnets interfacing with our cars? And although Cronkite and Popular Science were eerily accurate on GPS and car navigation systems, why were we so misguided on the future of robots?

It turns out that the future we need isn’t necessarily the one we seem to want.

#science #Predictions #Innovation #popularscience #history

Do you know about VisiTel? Video calling technology is such a mundane feature of smartphones now that it would be weird if a device *didn’t* have it. But the idea for the first FaceTime is buried deep in vintage tech history, all the way back in the 70’s… the 1870’s. And most people hated the idea of it.

By the time Mitsubishi’s VisiTel videophone graced the cover of Popular Science in 1988, video calling had already gone through generations of inventions, advances, and serious setbacks. When we finally acquired a pair of brand new VisiTel phones to make one single video phone call, humanity had already been through billions of dollars of failures, misguided promises, and losing gambles — including by Bell Labs, likely the most innovative company of the 20th century.

It’s been 150 years since we started thinking about and criticizing live video communication. And we still haven’t fully answered the technology’s most basic question: does anyone really want to be seen?

#technology #science #innovation #retro #Visitel

When Everett Knowles hitched a ride on a Boston train, he expected to make it home in a few minutes. But the result was the final leg of a medical history journey more than 30,000 years in the making when Eddy Knowles’ doctors turned tragedy into a medical miracle.

The path from accident to surgery required an almost impossible set of conditions to line up perfectly, and then it actually had to work. On the day of the accident, the wild scramble to harness expertise and to weigh calculated risks make for an engaging story of science and human ingenuity — but the truth is that the same exact process of discovery and daring is what forged the centuries of scientific knowledge that Eddy’s doctors used to save his arm.

Scientific triumphs and medical miracles happen every day. They just take thousands of generations to be born.

#medical #history #science #popularscience