The Electronic Newspaper (1978)

The April, 1978 issue of The Futurist magazine ran an incredibly forward-thinking piece about the future of newspapers.

If we think of a newspaper as being a printed object delivered to our homes, we may be talking about replacing newspaper with an electronic signal. But if we think (as I do) of newspapers as organizations which disseminate news and information by the most efficient methods available - then we are thinking in terms of applying a new technology to an existing institution.

The author, Kenneth Edwards, was writing about the emerging technology of Teletext in the UK. If the newspaper industry has had 30 years to think about this concept and decided that litigation is better than a new business model, it's tough to feel bad about their declining revenue.

See also:
Tablet Newspaper (1994)
Future Newspapers Written by Advertisers (1912)
Online Shopping (1967)

Future Newspapers Written by Advertisers (1912)

The August 10, 1912 Chicago Defender contained this blurb about journalism of the future.

"What's your idea of the future journal?"

"It will be written by advertisers, and it will contain nothing calculated to bring a blush to the cheek of the young person except cosmetics."

See also:
Tablet Newspaper (1994)

Henry Ford's Machine Men (1924)

The evening edition of the December 5, 1924 State Journal (Lincoln, Nebraska) ran a short article about Henry Ford's automated vision for the future. It was titled "Machine Men," and the author laments the hustle and bustle the automobile has produced. The author calls "pish-posh" on Mr. Henry Ford and his projections of life with less work.

The article is transcribed below in its entirety.

Where is Henry Ford going to land us? asks Arthur Train in The Forum. His ambition is to build and market a hundred million automobiles so that every child will have one. His "vision" is for a world where everything is done by machines. His perfect man would press a button by the side of his bed and find himself automatically clad, fed, exercised, amused, and put to bed again. Thirty minutes' work for each of us a day would be enough, he says, to keep civilization going. Pish-posh, Henry! Does anybody suppose you would stop until you'd eliminated the necessity for all work whatsoever? Of course you wouldn't! When you rearranged everything so that the human "robot" can sit on his front porch and talk to another "robot" friend a thousand miles away on his eye glass string, mow his farm in Mongolia and milk his reindeer in Nova Zembla by wireless, hear and see what is going on upon the other side of the world by looking at a shirt stud, transport himself thru the air on a broomstick, and kiss his wife and best girl by radio - will he be any better off? Before we had motors in New York I used to go down town in a rattling old surface car that took half an hour; but now in your cabriolet, even if you've reduced the price $590.65 F.O.B. Detroit, it takes an hour. Have I gained anything? Somehow I feel as if I'd lost a little of my liberty. I don't want a nickel-plated stomach or an oxydized liver. I don't want to sit in one place and be artificially respirated and exercised, in order to keep my blood in circulation. I like to work. I like to earn my bread by the sweat of my brow because it makes me hungry to do it that way. For if, Henry, everything is done for us, what eventually are we going to do?

See also:
Gigantic Robots to Fight Our Battles (Fresno Bee, 1934)
Robots: The World of the Future (1979)
The Mechanical Man of the Future (1928)
The Robot is a Terrible Creature (1922)

Tablet Newspaper (1994)

Knight-Ridder produced a video in 1994 demonstrating their faith in the tablet newspaper of the future. Below is the video in its entirety.

We may still use computers to create information but we'll use the tablet to interact with information.



The expert of the video insists that newspaper loyalty will not disappear with the digital age:

Many of the technologists.....assume that information is just a commodity and people really don't care where that information comes from as long as it matches their set of personal interests. I disagree with that view. People recognize the newspapers they subscribe to.....and there is a loyalty attached to those.

In short, "the technologists" were right. Newspaper companies are suing Google because their readers are less loyal than ever and simply want trustworthy news, whatever the source.

You can download this video at the Open Video Project.

Speed is Key to Future Travel (1965)

An editorial in the April 11, 1965 Modesto Bee and News-Herald (Modesto, California) describes the future of transportation. Below is an excerpt as well as the original piece in its entirety.

The US News & World Report of Washington, DC, in a recent article summed up some of the plans which will be in actual use, probably in another 10 years. They include:

Trains running on cushions of air in tunnels dug deep under densely populated areas, as kinds of supersonic railroads; the trains would pick up and drop off cars along the way without stopping, so passengers going to a particular town would enter the car to be left there; trains to carry automobiles between major superhighway points, much as the railroads now transport big trucks by the piggyback system; the use of automatic highways with electrically powered automobiles controlled by computers; "urbmobiles" which the commuter would rent for to and from work travel, the agency renting them to those needing in city transportation during the day; catapults to get cars moving at the 100 mile an hour rate more quickly and separate truckways to carry truck tractors hauling trains of three mammoth trailers.



See also:
Amphibian Monorail (1934)
Monorails at Disneyland (1959 and 1960)
Disney's Magic Highway, U.S.A. (1958)

1980-1990 Developments (1979)

The last two pages of the 1979 book Future Cities: Homes and Living into the 21st Century describes what will happen over the course of "the next 120 years." Naturally, we'll begin with the 1980s.


1980-1990

-Satellites in Earth orbit beam educational programmes to many countries in the underdeveloped Third World.
-Wind turbines - modern windmill designs - are developed which can supply electricity economically.
-Domestic computers run household equipment. Electronic chores include keeping accounts, ordering supplies, suggesting menus, cooking meals and keeping a diary for the people living in the house.
-Newspapers supplied to homes either via a computer print-out or in electronic form over the TV screen.
-First domestic robots used as household 'slaves' to do simple tasks.
-Terrorists steal nuclear warhead from military base. Threaten to blow up a city unless their demands are met. General realization of the appalling risks of poor security promote measures to keep atomic weapons under proper 'lock and key.'
-Nuclear fuel detector-satellite placed in orbit to maintain a watchful electronic eye on the world's supplies of atomic material.
-Good insulation and other energy-saving features built into all new houses.
-Solar panels in general use to heat water in homes. Solar-electric cells used to generate electricity for some uses, such as recharging batteries.
- World tree planting programme begun. Aim is to restore the oxygen-producing capacity of the world's plant life. Centuries of being chopped down have reduced the world's forest areas to a fraction of their former size. Other benefits include the production of wood-alcohol to use as a substitute for petrol in cars.

No One Will Walk - All Will Have Wheels (Brown County Democrat, 1900)

And you thought the Segway was a new idea! This image ran in the Brown County Democrat (De Pere, Wisconsin) newspaper on December 28, 1900.

There were all kinds of predictions in 1900 of what the 20th century would bring. The "Footomobile" manufactured by the "Electric Monroe Co." appears to be just one such idea. Check out the two guys in the background running into each other. Who said the paleo-future didn't have a sense of humor?


The image was found in the book Yesterday's Future: The Twentieth Century Begins.

See also:
Back to the Future: Part II (1989)