Science fiction is notorious for its continuous attempts to make predictions about future technology. Even if it isn’t the central theme of its stories, it’s always involved on the side. And sometimes, it also inspires scientists to make new technology breakthroughs. Unnoticeably, a lot of the imagined technology from the past is commonplace today. We’re going to look at five technologies that were predicted much earlier than you might think.
Science fiction is notorious for its continuous attempts to make predictions about future technology. Even if it isn’t the central theme of its stories, it’s always involved on the side. And sometimes, it also inspires scientists to make new technology breakthroughs. Unnoticeably, a lot of the imagined technology from the past is commonplace today. We’re going to look at five technologies that were predicted much earlier than you might think.
Here is one example - meeting room collaboration through visualization. In “Second Foundation” (1953), Isaac Asimov describes a conference room where the walls have interactive projections on them that each meeting participant can add to with their own content. It also doubles up as a digital, interactive blackboard. While a meeting room that’s a complete canvas might be overkill, it took about 50 years after Asimov’s novel for such technology to be invented and used. His name for it, ‘Prime Radiant’, will always be cooler than whatever companies will come up with, though.
