We’ve been imagining a future of ubiquitous videophones for over a century. And today it’s considered no big deal that we’re able to make video calls with devices that we carry around in our pockets. But it took a while to get to that point. One reason? It was incredibly expensive.
The ARPANET didn’t make its first host-to-host connection until 1969. But long before anyone was online, communications companies were trying to figure out how to make interactive home shopping a reality. This short 1961 film from Bell Systems (now AT&T) showcases the futuristic tech that they were imagining—including…
You can keep your flying cars and jetpacks. The real sign that we’re living in the future? Easy: real-time language translation. Skype just put its version into wide release. But effortless translation is something we’ve been waiting on for quite some time, as you can see from this 1993 clip of an AT&T concept video…
Thanks to tech like Skype, the ability to both see and hear someone across thousands of miles is a mundane exercise for most of us here in the early 21st century. But back in 1947, signing a contract over videophone was like looking into the future. Even if that future turned out a bit different than we were expecting.
As technologies evolve, so does the language we use to describe them. Radio used to be called wireless telephone. Some people used to call the internet the catenet. But what do we call it when you're talking with a person via video link? Is it videophone? Video chat? Skype?
"By this month it should be possible for a New Yorker, a Chicagoan or a Washingtonian to communicate with someone in one of the other cities by televised telephoning. The device he would use is called a Picturephone and is described by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, which developed it, as 'the first…
From the 1950s until the 1970s Bell Labs spent over $500 million developing the videophone. But the technology failed to achieve mainstream success. Why? Bill Hammack from the University of Illinois has a great video explaining the tremendous promise and eventual demise of the videophone as a standalone appliance in…
Once upon a time, the videophone was a futuristic technology on par with flying cars. It symbolized futuristic communication. Sadly, the reality of FaceTime and Skype didn't quite measure up to these retro futuristic concepts.
The March 1931 issue of The Country Gentleman magazine included this advertisement for Timken bearings. With the bold headline "100 YEARS AHEAD" the ad promises that the farmer of the future may be unrecognizable — thanks to Timken bearings, of course. Our farmer of tomorrow wears a suit to work and sits at a desk…
In this most gloriously futuristic year of 2011 we somehow find ourselves awash in videophones. In a way, they snuck up on us. And they most certainly didn't show up in the ways that people had been predicting them for decades. The videophone was to change the way we looked at home schooling, job interviews, medical…
The 2002 Taschen book Future Perfect is kind of like a dead-tree Tumblr; no credits for illustrators, no dates, and no context. I even tried to reblog a page from the book by nailing it to a tree, but my neighbors tore it down. What a bunch of jerks.
Talking of Tomorrow is a short animated film that was produced for Bell Labs and released in either 1960 or 1962. Directed by Jetsons writer Chuck Couch, the film tells the story of a business executive from the future who works for an "interspace engineering company."
In this ad from the March, 1957 issue of Scientific American we see John Q. Businessman making a “face to face” telephone call. The ad declares that thanks to the Hughes Tonotron and other products from the Hughes Aircraft Company people will soon see “on the wall television, electronic control of factory production,…
The December 4, 1932 San Antonio Light (San Antonio, TX) ran this illustration accompanying a piece titled, "Looking Ahead Another 50 Years."
I’m often shocked at how accurate some 20th century predictions of online shopping were. However, these retail prognosticators frequently miss the mark by assuming that individual goods would need to be photographed or videotaped live for consumers.
Brian Horrigan, co-author of the retrofuturism bible Yesterday's Tomorrows, pointed me to this amazing advertisement from Bell Telephone System which appeared in the November, 1962 issue of Boys' Life.
If you thought Skype was a new idea, you need to catch up on your old school sci-fi movies! Video phone concepts have actually been popping up since the 1870s. Proof? This collection of forward looking photos, illustrations, and ads.
Relive the 132 year history of videophones, one that's littered with wild concepts, a few success stories and a ton of failures. AT&T, for example, has been working on videophones since 1927 and hasn't got it right quite yet. [Technologizer]
In Your Flying Car Awaits, author Paul Milo discusses "robot butlers, lunar vacations and other dead-wrong predictions of the 20th Century." Here are 10 calamitous tech failures. Even the ones that did make it aren't anything like their original visions.
