Live data from Hacker News

Isaac Asimov's predictions for what the world will be like in 2014

nytimes.com

1–10 of 175 posts

Re: Isaac Asimov's predictions for what the world will be like in 2014

#2
I loved this "Communications will become sight-sound and you will see as well as hear the person you telephone. The screen can be used not only to see the people you call but also for studying documents and photographs and reading passages from books. Synchronous satellites, hovering in space will make it possible for you to direct-dial any spot on earth, including the weather stations in Antarctica (shown in chill splendor as part of the '64 General Motors exhibit)."

Re: Isaac Asimov's predictions for what the world will be like in 2014

#4

I loved this "Communications will become sight-sound and you will see as well as hear the person you telephone. The screen can be used not only to see the people you call but also for studying documents and photographs and reading passages from books. Synchronous satellites, hovering in space will make it possible for you to direct-dial any spot on earth, including the weather stations in Antarctica (shown in chill s…

He was right about Antarctica. In 1998 and 2001 my dad did winter missions with the Australian Antarctic Division née ANARE.

Part of his job was keeping the satellite links functional. We got to talk to him on the phone once a week.

On the numbers, he had more bandwidth than I did at the time -- 155kbps. Latency was a bit rough though.

Re: Isaac Asimov's predictions for what the world will be like in 2014

#10

Robots will neither be common nor very good in 2014, but they will be in existence. They're good but not common.

There are uncommon sort-of-good ones (by Asimov standards), but the semi-common ones are abysmal. Ever own a Roomba? I never will again.
Post reply on HN