Border Surveillance of 1990 (1977)

The November 26, 1977 Tucson Citizen (Tucson, AZ) imagined the border and facility surveillance technology of 1990.

Special sensors designed to look like rocks, plants and other natural objects could be seeded along borders, and transmit via satellite the sounds of voices, footsteps and vehicles of potential illegal aliens and smugglers.

See also:
The Road Ahead: Future of Police Work (1995)
Closer Than We Think! (1958-1963)
Jet Flying Belt is Devised to Carry Man for Miles (New York Times, 1968)
Headlines of the Near Future (1972)

French Prints Show the Year 2000 (1910)

Flying FiremenThe National Library of France (BnF) has an amazing collection of prints from 1910 which depict life in the year 2000. They are credited to Villemard.

There's speculation that they were included with "foodstuffs" of the era, much like the German postcards we looked at back in April.

Car ShoesThe BarberThe Avenue of the OperaA Curiosity
I wonder if the "curiosity" referred to is the horse as an uncommon means of transportation, or the extinction of all animals as referenced in the 1900 Ladies' Home Journal article we looked at a while back.The Electric Train From Paris to BeijingA RescueSpeak to the Caretaker
This image clearly takes its inspiration from another French futurist, Albert Robida, and his book The Twentieth Century.Sentinel Advanced in the HelicopterCyclist ScoutsPhonographic MessageOne For the RoadLady In Her BathroomHeating With RadiumHearing The NewspaperCorrespondence CinemaCars of WarBuilding SiteAt SchoolA Festival of FlowersA Chemical Dinner
It's amazing how long the idea of synthetic food has been with us. Before starting this blog I had assumed that the idea started with the Jetsons.Airship On The Long CourseThe TailorFlying Police

See also:
Postcards Show the Year 2000 (circa 1900)
Evening Fashions of the Year 1952 (1883)
The Air Ship: A Musical Farce Comedy (1898)
Going to the Opera in the Year 2000 (1882)
Collier's Illustrated Future of 2001 (1901)
Predictions of a 14-Year-Old (Milwaukee Excelsior, 1901)
No One Will Walk - All Will Have Wheels (Brown County Democrat, 1900)
The Next Hundred Years (Milwaukee Herold und Seebote, 1901)
What May Happen in the Next Hundred Years (Ladies Home Journal, 1900)
Flying Machines (circa 1885)

Headlines of the Near Future (1972)

The 1972 book Futures Conditional contains essays and lists from many different futurists of the era. This list of headlines of the near future, by Billy Rojas, presents readers with events that will "probably happen - in some cases undoubtedly happen - although not necessarily in the order presented."

1972

February

Chiang Kai-shek dead in Taiwan; new regime is created that seeks to "modernize" Formosa. Ten year plan to replace most ideographs with Roman letters is announced. Major effort is made to organize "overseas" Chinese - the millions is southeast Asia, the tens of thousands in America - into a series of formalized trade associations.

March

Safe cigarettes invented: Lorillard stock advances 20 points in one day.

July

Chicago firm begins marketing robot "housekeepers": mechanical mice to vacuum rugs and clean floors, automated kitchens that prepare hot meals according to consumer specifications, etc.

November

Team of Muskie and Adlai Stevenson III defeats Republicans for Presidency.

1973

January

J.Edgar Hoover resigns post as head of FBI.

June

Astronauts find evidence of sub-cellular life on the moon - two billion years ago.

July

Jackie divorces Ari; she plans to marry David Brinkley.

September

New Jersey becomes first state to legalize marijuana.

November

Stones break up. New music stirs U.S.; Cheyenne native rock-and-tom-tom group tops charts.

December

Peace settlement reached in Middle East; version of Allon plan adopted on a "phase-out" basis; Israel-Jordan to become joint secular state.

1974

March

Mao-Tse-tung suffers heart attack in China. Succeeded by Chou En-Lai. Red Guard "party" forms to challenge authority of the government, cultural revolution becomes an underground movement.

April

Hovercraft "grass highway" bonds approved by Congress: Boston-Richmond route.

May

Haile Selassie dies in Washington hospital. His death removes last obstacle to United States in East Africa, a new nation made up of the former states of Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda.

July

South Sudan secedes from Arab Federation; civil war erupts as rebels receive encouragement and aid from Addis Ababa.

October

Houston doctor discloses discovery of selective memory-erasing drug.

November

Reagan defeated by 350,000 votes.

1975

February

Rescue in space; Russians save Americans endangered on orbiting space platform.

April

U. of Oklahoma student disorders reach insurrection proportions; social science building destroyed, 4 police, 18 students killed.

June

"Electro-pop," completely synthetic beverage starts a new food craze: Electro-snax, Electro-suppers are marketed.

August

First space hospital (4 "beds") established by U.S.S.R.

September

Socialists return to power in Britain.

1976

May

Cabinet restructure in U.S., new secretaries of Education, Environment.

October

Sex-selection industry booms. Chemical treatments enable prospective parents to predetermine sex of offspring.

November

Allard Lowenstein defeats Buckley in N.Y. Senate contest.

1977

January

Temporary lunar base set up by U.S. - 6 men, 2 months.

June

Famine conditions worsen in India, Java. Communist revolution develops.

October

Sexual intercourse allowed in Yale sex ed. classes. Harvard follows suit.

November

Brazilian church secedes from Rome; "second reformation" as Dutch, some Americans, also walk out.

December

Tito dies in Yugoslavia, unsuccessful leftist coup to oust hand-picked successor.

1978

March

Religious revival reported in Africa: Nigeria, Dahomey, Ivory Coast, Guinea become Baha'i countries.

July

Japanese firm announces opening of sea-chains, series of floating cities to accommodate 10,000 people each; located in Polynesia.

August

Police force retired in Seattle; replaced by paid, plain clothes community people.

1979

February

First "time traveler." Star of ten-year hibernation for Minneapolis man.

September

Radio signals from vicinity of 41 Y Cygni indicate intelligent life in the universe.

October

Laser "arrays" used by commercial ships to navigate Antarctic waters; business firms start pilot plants on southernmost continent.

December

U.S. court system reformed. New features include "maximum wait law" - no more than 30 days between arrest and trial - and "obsolete statute law" - any law on the books is retired after 20 years unless specifically renewed by legislative act.

See also:
Sea City 2000 (1979)
The Future of Leisure That Never Arrived (New York Times, 2007)
Space Colony Possible (The News, 1975)
Civilized Adultery (1970)
Space Colony Pirates (1981)
The Population Bomb: Scenario 1 (1970)
The Population Bomb: Scenario 2 (1970)
The Population Bomb: Scenario 3 (1970)
Closer Than We Think! Robot Housemaid (1959)

Closer Than We Think! (1958-1963)

In 1958 Arthur Radebaugh started the syndicated Sunday comic Closer Than We Think! It ran in newspapers until early 1963. The strip really epitomizes the optimistic brand of futurism so common in the post-WWII era. Below are a few great examples of this paleo-futuristic strip from the Chicago Tribune.

Push-Button Education - May 25, 1958
"Teaching would be by means of sound movies and mechanical tabulating machines."


Wrist Watch TV - April 17, 1960
"TV sets the size of postage stamps will soon be worn on the wrist, each with a personal dialing number."


"Pogo" Police Car - May 4, 1958
"Here, for tomorrow, is the concept of policemen on mechanical pogo platforms ..."


Farm Automation - March 30, 1958
"A floating tower will oversee a swarm of robot implements and tractors operated by electronic command."


Gravity in Reverse - June 29, 1958
"Factory-made houses equipped with antigravity machinery could be floated above the ground - to catch the breezes!"


See also:
Word Origins: Imagineering (1947)
Ristos (1979)
Homework in the Future (1981)
Connections: AT&T's Vision of the Future (Part 7, 1993)
The Road Ahead: Future Classroom (1995)
Superfarm of the Year 2020 (1979)

Postcards Show the Year 2000 (circa 1900)

A Quick Stroll on the WaterPaleo-Future reader Tom T. sent me an amazing collection of postcards from the dawn of the twentieth century that depict what life would be like in the year 2000. According to Tom the postcards were originally featured here but have since been removed. The site claimed that the postcards were produced by Hildebrands (a leading German chocolate company of the time).

The Moving PavementHouse-Moving by TrainTelevised Outside BroadcastingPersonal Flying MachinesWeather Control MachineCombined Ship and Railway LocomotiveUndersea Tourist BoatsRoofed CitiesPersonal AirshipsSummer Holidays at the North PolePolice X-Ray Surveillance Machine

See also:
Collier's Illustrated Future of 2001 (1901)
Predictions of a 14-Year-Old (Milwaukee Excelsior, 1901)
The Next Hundred Years (Milwaukee Herold und Seebote, 1901)
What May Happen in the Next Hundred Years (Ladies Home Journal, 1900)
Amphibian Monorail (Popular Science, 1934)

The Road Ahead: Future of Police Work (1995)

Now that we've seen what the classroom of the future and the home of the future look like, let's take a look at police investigations of the future. The video below is from the CD-ROM included in the 1995 Bill Gates book The Road Ahead.



With video monitors in cars and wireless "wallet PCs" the most hilariously paleo-futuristic thing about this video is the huge audio recording device he plops down on the desk.

See also:
The Road Ahead: Future Classroom (1995)
The Road Ahead: Future Homes (1995)
Bill Gates on Charlie Rose (1996)
Jet Flying Belt is Devised to Carry Man for Miles (New York Times, 1968)

Jet Flying Belt is Devised to Carry Man for Miles (New York Times, 1968)

The New York Times article from 1968 titled, "Jet Flying Belt is Devised to Carry Man for Miles," describes the device pictured above as a Buck Rogers flying belt. Oh, how close to the future New York Times readers must have felt on June 28, 1968. Little did they realize that jetpacks would be relegated to the paleo-future.

"....the police might use the belts for riot control, for setting up roadblocks in a hurry, for inspecting rooftops for snipers, burglars or others escaping from the scene of a crime."

If you have a TimeSelect subscription you can read the entire article here.

See also:
Jet Pack Video (1966) 21 Feb 2007