Hasta La Gadget!

Imagine a world where nearly every book ever published could be delivered to you electronically in the blink of an eye. Imagine a world where all of your banking is done without having to visit a bank teller. Imagine a world where paper doesn’t need to be shuttled around to exchange ideas. I know, I know, I’m basically describing right now. But in the year 1972, when the ARPANET (the precursor to our modern internet) was just beginning to take its first baby steps, these ideas were all a fantasy. In the minds of these men, specifically.

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Before the invention of the car, jaywalking wasn’t a recognized concept. Want to get across the street? Then just walk across the street—nobody’s going to stop you. But the rise of the automobile posed a new problem for people of the early 20th century. While the median state-designated speed limit for American cities was just 10 miles per hour in 1906, the pace of American streets soon increased enough that people who wanted to cross them were suddenly putting themselves in harm’s way. So cities across the U.S. started to regulate where and when pedestrians could cross. You can see the faint pedestrian crosswalk lines painted on the street in the scene below from Detroit circa 1917.

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It all sounds so Jetsonian. A new 600 mph "Hyperloop" method of transportation connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco? That’s the buzz around the internet water cooler as people guess what Elon Musk has in store for the transportation of tomorrow. I say, sign me up! But if we take any lessons from past visions of futuristic transportation (as we are wont to do here at Gizmodo) we can probably guess the Hyperloop’s greatest hurdle: tunnels.

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Mechanically-powered flashlights — be they shake, crank or squeeze varieties — are one of those must-have items for every emergency kit. When a tornado knocks out power, or the Big One hits, it’s nice to know that you won’t be fumbling around in the dark looking for batteries. But you might be surprised to learn that mechanically powered flashlights have been around for nearly a century.

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The next time you’re frantically rushing to plug your parking meter, you can curse Carl C. Magee. Because it was on this day in 1935 that Magee’s parking meters made their world debut, much to the chagrin of future drivers everywhere.

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