8 predictions Arthur C. Clarke got right decades ago – by Patrick Ranasinghe
8 predictions Arthur C. Clarke got right decades ago
“2001” author Arthur C. Clarke brought us some frightening visions of the future that have yet to come to pass. But he also nailed an awful lot about 21st-century life.
Where home computers were headed 1
Speaking at an AT&T/MIT conference in 1976, “2001: A Space Odyssey” author Arthur C. Clarke shared his vision of the future. He described the ability to communicate with the outside world using HD screens attached to keyboards.
In other words, he accurately saw where the home computers just being introduced at the time were headed. He failed to mention the dominant position that cat videos would come to occupy on these screens, however.
Related article: Arthur C. Clarke describes the 21st century in detail… in 1976
Skype/FaceTime 2
Like many futurists frustrated by the tyranny of tinny audio over phone lines as their primary means of real-time communication, Arthur C. Clarke envisioned video calls being commonplace in the future. Decades later, Skype and FaceTime made the inevitability a reality, though nerds in the know (with decent early broadband) were video-chatting via Cu-SeeMe in the 1990s.
The Internet 3
Email 4
In 1976, there was the telephone and snail mail, but nothing that existed only in the digital ether on servers or systems until you checked it (aka email). Yet Clarke was savvy enough to foresee not only where real-time communication was headed, but how mail would go digital, too. He probably foresaw Snapchat as well, but that prediction deleted itself 10 seconds later
Telecommuting 7
Smartwatches 8
Patrick Ranasinghe
