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12 Hilariously Wrong Tech Predictions
INC ^
| 04/28/2018
| Jessica Stillman
Posted on 04/28/2018 4:52:10 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Is Bitcoin a greed-driven fad or will the blockchain technology that underlies it revolutionize the internet? Will artificial intelligence produce a world of ease and plenty or turn on us and kill us all? Is that jet pack you always wanted arriving any day now, or basically never?
There are no shortage of people who make their livings by claiming to have answers to these questions. You should probably meet their claims with a healthy dose of skepticism.
Futurists aren't all snake oil salesmen, of course, and it's sensible for both individuals and businesses to think ahead and develop contingency plans for possible future scenarios. But history also offers plenty of reasons to be skeptical of "experts" with crystal balls.
In the past, a great many of them have often been outrageously wrong.
You may have heard the infamous 1977 quote by Digital Equipment Corp. president Ken Olson -- "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home" -- but as a highly entertaining recent roundup of failed tech predictions by blog Relatively Interesting illustrates, Olson's flub was just the tip of a very large iceberg.
Here's a small sampling of the sometimes hilarious quotes that made the list. I can't guarantee the historical accuracy of all of them (many quotes have incredibly murky origins), but I can promise they'll remind you that confidence is no guarantee of actual competence when it comes to predictions of the future of tech.
- "With over fifteen types of foreign cars already on sale here, the Japanese auto industry isn't likely to carve out a big share of the market for itself." -- Business Week, 1968.
- "Lee DeForest has said in many newspapers and over his signature that it would be possible to transmit the human voice across the Atlantic before many years. Based on these absurd and deliberately misleading statements, the misguided public ... has been persuaded to purchase stock in his company ..." -- a U.S. District Attorney, prosecuting American inventor Lee DeForest for selling stock fraudulently through the mail for his Radio Telephone Company in 1913.
- "To place a man in a multi-stage rocket and project him into the controlling gravitational field of the moon where the passengers can make scientific observations, perhaps land alive, and then return to earth - all that constitutes a wild dream worthy of Jules Verne. I am bold enough to say that such a man-made voyage will never occur regardless of all future advances." -- Lee DeForest, American radio pioneer and inventor of the vacuum tube, in 1926.
- "Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." -- Lord Kelvin, British mathematician and physicist, president of the British Royal Society, 1895.
- "Nuclear-powered vacuum cleaners will probably be a reality in 10 years." - Alex Lewyt, president of vacuum cleaner company Lewyt Corp., in the New York Times in 1955.
-
"There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will." -- Albert Einstein, 1932.
- "The cinema is little more than a fad. It's canned drama. What audiences really want to see is flesh and blood on the stage." -- Charlie Chaplin, actor, producer, director, and studio founder, 1916.
- "The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys." -- Sir William Preece, Chief Engineer, British Post Office, 1878.
- "The world potential market for copying machines is 5,000 at most." -- IBM, to the eventual founders of Xerox, 1959.
- "How, sir, would you make a ship sail against the wind and currents by lighting a bonfire under her deck? I pray you, excuse me, I have not the time to listen to such nonsense." -- Napoleon Bonaparte, when told of Robert Fulton's steamboat.
- "[Television] won't be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night." -- Darryl Zanuck, movie producer, 20th Century Fox, 1946.
- "When the Paris Exhibition [of 1878] closes, electric light will close with it and no more will be heard of it." -- Oxford professor Erasmus Wilson.
TOPICS: Business/Economy; History; Science; Society
KEYWORDS: predictions; stringtheory; technology
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To: SeekAndFind
Look at Star Trek (TOS).Portable communication devices came true.So did the ability to hold huge amounts of data in a small plastic object smaller than an old fashioned matchbook.
21
posted on
04/28/2018 6:01:15 PM PDT
by
Gay State Conservative
(You Say "White Privilege"...I Say "Protestant Work Ethic")
To: Mears
I made a prediction once. I bought the very first issue of People Magazine,went home,read it,and told my husband that it was just garbage and would never last.
And I said that Roe v. Wade would be overturned by Congress and an irate public. I'm still waiting...
BTW, I agree with you on People Mag and have since the beginning.
To: notpoliticallycorewrecked
“We have ten years to save the oceans; we’re all going to pay the consequences, which would result in our death”—Ted Danson, 1988.
23
posted on
04/28/2018 6:16:27 PM PDT
by
Rebelbase
(YETI deathwatch, tick, tick, tick......)
To: SeekAndFind
"Nuclear-powered vacuum cleaners will probably be a reality in 10 years." - Alex Lewyt, president of vacuum cleaner company Lewyt Corp., in the New York Times in 1955.
If a nuclear power plant generates electricity, and that electricity in turn powers a vacuum cleaner, can't you argue that his prediction came true?
24
posted on
04/28/2018 6:17:07 PM PDT
by
Dr. Sivana
(There is no salvation in politics.)
To: Gay State Conservative
O’hura’s blue tooth was prophecy.
25
posted on
04/28/2018 6:17:27 PM PDT
by
Rebelbase
(YETI deathwatch, tick, tick, tick......)
To: SeekAndFind
"Nuclear-powered vacuum cleaners will probably be a reality in 10 years." - Alex Lewyt, president of vacuum cleaner company Lewyt Corp., in the New York Times in 1955. Electric vacuum cleaners are commonplace - and nuclear powered electric power plants are not rare either. Does that count?
26
posted on
04/28/2018 6:17:54 PM PDT
by
conservatism_IS_compassion
(Presses can be 'associated,' or presses can be independent. Demand independent presses.)
To: Rebelbase
There was an article on FR about an archaeolgy find of a bunch of coins with King Harald Bluetooth of Denmark. (He had a dead tooth, bluish in color).
Erickson(?) in Finland(?) created the Bluetooth device, and named it after him, as he was the first king to unite the tribes together. (I’m sure I got the details wrong - but true story!)
27
posted on
04/28/2018 6:21:25 PM PDT
by
21twelve
To: SeekAndFind
I have found that the vast majority of people can not tell sh*t from shinola. Working with some of the brightest minds in the U.S., I had them rank a lot of tech items. In every case it came out totally random. I had to come up with a methodology to solve that problem. There are only so many resources. One can not afford to waste them. But unfortunately it is done every day.
28
posted on
04/28/2018 6:26:43 PM PDT
by
Revolutionary
("Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition!")
To: SeekAndFind
“The world will run out of oil in 10 years.”
- U.S. Bureau of Mines (1914)
“The world will run out of oil in 13 years.”
- U.S. Department of the Interior (1939 and 1950)
“The world will run out of oil and other fossil fuels by 1990.”
- Paul Erlich, Limits to Growth (1973)
“The world will run out of oil in 2030, and other fossil fuels in 2050.”
- Paul Erlich, Beyond the Limit (2002)
29
posted on
04/28/2018 6:26:49 PM PDT
by
VeniVidiVici
(Democrat laws and regulations kill people.)
To: SeekAndFind
30
posted on
04/28/2018 6:27:55 PM PDT
by
mrsmith
(Dumb sluts: Lifeblood of the Media, Backbone of the Democrat/RINO Party!)
To: SeekAndFind
In his book, "The Road Ahead", Mr. Gates admitted that he believed the technology for "killer applications" was inadequate to lure consumers to the Internet.
the 1995 version. He revised his opinion in a later release.
31
posted on
04/28/2018 6:28:55 PM PDT
by
stylin19a
(Best.Election.of.All-Times.Ever.In.The.History.Of.Ever)
To: SeekAndFind
“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” Thomas Watson, president of IBM, 1943
32
posted on
04/28/2018 6:47:38 PM PDT
by
NonValueAdded
(#DeplorableMe #BitterClinger #HillNO! #cishet #MyPresident #MAGA #Winning #covfefe)
To: Mears
So, how many copies have you got since then?
33
posted on
04/28/2018 7:07:48 PM PDT
by
doorgunner69
(Give me the liberty to take care of my own security..........)
To: NonValueAdded
I think there is a world market for maybe five computers. Thomas Watson, president of IBM, 1943And in the 1940s, that was a perfectly valid supposition. The ability to create personal computers depended on chains of inventions that simply couldn't be predicted.
Remember, computers were made up of rooms full of relays, switches, and vacuum tubes. It took the invention of semiconductors, to transistors, to using them in nand gates, to integrated circuits, to microprocessors.
But that's why invention leads to unpredictable results.
Mark
34
posted on
04/28/2018 7:09:17 PM PDT
by
MarkL
(Do I really look like a guy with a plan?)
To: SeekAndFind
When I was in high school the school newspaper published predictions made by the class of 1950 about the year 2000. Among them were atomic powered typewriters, atomic powered cars and atomic powered escalators.
To: SeekAndFind
You may have heard the infamous 1977 quote by Digital Equipment Corp. president Ken Olson -- "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home"
Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) introduced the VT100 video terminal, in August 1978, for remote Main Frame computer interface. The poor man was betting on the only thing he understood.
36
posted on
04/28/2018 7:15:44 PM PDT
by
higgmeister
( In the Shadow of The Big Chicken)
To: SeekAndFind
"With over fifteen types of foreign cars already on sale here, the Japanese auto industry isn't likely to carve out a big share of the market for itself." -- Business Week, 1968.
And then the world discovered the Toyota Corolla.
37
posted on
04/28/2018 7:19:01 PM PDT
by
higgmeister
( In the Shadow of The Big Chicken)
To: SeekAndFind
I have to stand up for my old buddy Al...
"There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will." -- Albert Einstein, 1932.
HIS notion of "harnessing nuclear energy" is taking the energy that holds the atom together and converting it into energy. We don't do that. We take 2 radioactive materials, put them in close proximity to create intense heat, and we use that heat to boil water to generate steam pressure turn a turbine (not much different from the technology of the earliest steam engines of the 1800s) and that turbine (made of copper) spins within a magnetic field, and we then direct the shed electrons... HUGE difference.
We are not nearly close to cracking open atoms in a controlled environment and using that energy for anything useful (even though we are able to level cities by using it in an uncontrolled environment).
38
posted on
04/28/2018 7:23:18 PM PDT
by
Teacher317
(We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men)
To: doorgunner69
Not one-——ever !!!!!!!!!!
.
39
posted on
04/28/2018 7:27:00 PM PDT
by
Mears
To: Teacher317
HIS notion of "harnessing nuclear energy" is taking the energy that holds the atom together and converting it into energy. We don't do that. Yes, we do. It's called nuclear fission and it's what all commercial and naval nuclear plants use.
40
posted on
04/28/2018 7:47:50 PM PDT
by
seowulf
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