Human beings have never been great at predicting the future's technologies. After all, according to writers of the 40's and 50's, we should be zooming around in flying cars by now!
Past mistakes don't stop us from guessing at what tomorrow may bring, however. One recent example of a prediction gone slightly awry comes from Microsoft, who made some bold prediction as to what 2019 may bring all the way back in 2009! Their video got some things right and others things...well, not so right.
Microsoft in 2019 [HQ]youtu.be
While some aspects of Microsoft's prediction have come true (more smart devices, an increased number of screens, real-time video streaming to all parts of the world), the company went a bit overboard with other parts (computerized paper, bookmarks, and car keys, along with seemingly ubiquitous smart tables).
The video was originally resurfaced by Reddit user kinokokoro. People like Ikinoki on the image sharing site couldn't help but chortle at the ways in which Microsoft missed the mark:
"I think main problem is batteries. And how f***ing useless nearly 90% of what they display in this ad."
Tetrylene couldn't help but notice how rosy Microsoft's idea of the future was:
"They also screwed up in assuming devices would be able to seamlessly talk to each other. It's still a fucking mess. I have two computers sitting beside each other that I both own. What's the easiest way to get a picture to the other one? Turns out it's sending it to myself on WhatsApp, logging into WhatsApp on the other machine and dragging it wherever. Pretty dumb. Ideally I could just drag it off the side of the screen and onto the other machine's screen space. That would be a baby step compared to this video's vision but we're nowhere close to that working seamlessly between different operating systems and types of devices. Edit: I know what network drives are and what network sharing is. Average joe doesn't, and seemingly neither do the people in Microsoft's futuristic vision of computers connecting together easily."
giantspeck pointed out one not-so-great bit of Microsoft's vision they seemed to conveniently omit from their video:
"Fingerprints. Fingerprints everywhere."
Solain pointed out there's still a couple days for the company to meet it's 2019 goal!
"Well, they still have today and tomorrow to catch up"
Glucose-6-P made the point that most of what's shown is certainly possible today, just not logistically sound.
"I'm assuming everything shown could exist today, but would be very expensive and inconvenient. Except that auto animation generation nonsense."
Perhaps the most unbelieveable detail was pointed out by oryza162:
"did they really think a schoolteacher could afford to fly first class in 2019?"
As people who have made it all the way from 2009 to 2019, the internet all took second to laugh at how silly we were back then and how SMART we are now.
But don't feel too bad about how far we've come! Though they weren't always the ones Microsoft expected, technology has truly taken a leap forward over the past decade.
Here's to the amazing new technologies of 2019!
@ElizLanders/X