In the two decades following World War II, it seemed there was no limit to technological growth. Sure, a computer was still the size of an entire room, and no one had telephones in their pockets. But techno-utopian ideas like flying cars and jetpacks and meal pills were all being taken very seriously as the inevitable fruits of science’s labor.
     |
TV advertisers imagine that one day soon you might see a product on screen — say Don Draper’s whiskey glass or Daenerys Targaryen’s dress—and pause the program, click on the product and then instantly purchase it. Relatively primitive versions of this technology already exist, but the idea is far from new. Long before most people had even seen a TV set, this type of instant-purchase tech for television was already being imagined in the "radio" of the future. A radio set that also included TV with a swivel head, instant newspapers printed right at home, and a telephone that could reach the family car.
| |
This week we have some strange and wonderful time capsule news, including a freshly welded capsule that will travel the world in the Navy’s newest aircraft carrier, an 1877 stowaway that spent the last century in the smoking section, and one county in Kansas that (thanks to a time capsule!) discovered Bank of America owes them $60,000.
| |
What would you do if you had a time machine? Go watch the ancient Egyptian pyramids being built? Hang out with Jesus and turn some water into wine? Kill Hitler, maybe? These are all, no doubt, noble endeavors. But I’ve often said—and I stand by this—that if I had a time machine, I’d go visit the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago.
| |
On a muggy spring day in Manhattan during the throes of the Great Depression, about 200 New York University students shuffled into a room on the 62nd floor of the RCA Building. They were there for a lesson on the principles of photoelectricity, taught by their professor, Dr. C. C. Clark. But strangely, the professor wasn’t there in the room with them. At least not in the flesh.
| |
This week was a big one for capsule aficionados. Time capsules are as much a Fourth of July tradition as hot dogs, boating, and getting your fingers blown off with homemade fireworks
| |
Remember 1995? Yeah, me neither. But to refresh our memories, we’ve got an "In and Out" list from the December 20, 1995 edition of USA Today. This strange artifact (found in the University of California-San Francisco tobacco document archives) gives a peek at how mainstream America was thinking about shifting trends in media, technology and, I guess, Mexican food in the mid-1990s.
| |
Douglas Engelbart, an internet pioneer and developer of the early computer mouse, passed away early this morning at the age of 88.
| |
Americans love things that sparkle, things that glow, and especially things that blow up. So it makes sense that on America’s birthday, we take great pride in our various spectacles of light and noise. Today, there are countless YouTube videos and how-to websites showing how to create your own firecrackers and noisemakers. But back in the 1920s, it was the medium of magazines (remember those?) that spearheaded the DIY fireworks movement. And their advice was utterly insane.
| |
Back in the 1920s, it seemed everything was becoming coin-operated. All over the U.S., you could find coin-operated weighing machines at railroad stations; coin-operated vending machines were chock full of candy, cigarettes and other tasty treats; and the automatic coin-operated shoe shine machine was even threatening to put its flesh-and-blood counterpart out of a job. A 1926 issue of Radio News magazine called dropping coins in a slot the great American past-time. But unlike the candy vending machine or even weighing machines, there’s one Jazz Age coin contraption that you’d be hard pressed to find today: the coin-operated radio.
| |
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
