Narrated by Tom Selleck, and directed by Fight Club's David Fincher, the ads began in 1993 and were (mostly) remarkably accurate, predicting: E-Books, in-car GPS, tablet PCs, E-ZPass, video conferencing, and video on demand. Take a look:

Also interesting is that the montage comes from a 1993 Newsweek CD-ROM. The theme: That one day, magazines would be sent to you as a CD-ROM sponsored by ads. Uh, no. Crazy to think that was only 16 years ago.

It's ironic that the main two things the ads get wrong are now core AT&T businesses: We don't fax from the beach (we email; but close enough), and we don't video chat from public telephones (or with our iPhones—where's my forward-facing camera damn it).

And as for tele-commuting in your bare feet? Hey, I'm doing that right now… [YouTube via David Pogue]

Send an email to Danny Allen, the author of this post, at dallen@gizmodo.com.