The Future of Technology, as seen in 1961

CyberJournalist.net has a great piece on how the future of technology was viewed in 1961, from a film AT&T commissioned shortly after AT&T had just announced its first modem. “This film not only serves as almost the birth of the information age, it also projects that technology far into the future.”

The commercial products that would allow this connected, computer-communicating network? They’re basic, but at the time seemed radical:

* The wireless Bellboy Pager, which was introduced commercially in 1962
* The Data-phone, which was supposed to revolutionize business communications
* The videophone—shown as a credit-card-reading vertical two-way television
* The card-reading phone or automatic dialer, which would dial a number from small plastic punch cards, introduced in 1961
* Oh, and package delivery via rocket (which had just been tested in 1959).

Watch the video at http://youtu.be/avHo0-qU8xo