For some strange reason, humans have always had a fascination with the future; we love to ponder how things will be in the world in the coming years.
The curiosity of men and women to know what lies ahead is a way of preparing and adapting to the possible changes we will experience.
Not all our predictions come true; sometimes our dreams remain just that, dreams, while there are others that do end up being fulfilled.
Here are some predictions from the past that surprisingly have come true today.
Predictions of a retro future that have become reality:
Videocalls
After the discovery that telephone calls could be made, human ambition didn’t stop, and instead, there was an interest in videocalls.
Mobile phones
In 1956, there was already talk about the possibility of phones becoming mobile, by adding numbers to dial on the same phone. It seemed like a crazy idea because no one had seen anything like it, but it was undoubtedly a great success.
Solar-Powered Cars
During the peak of the American motor industry, Chrysler curiously predicted that in the future, cars would be powered by a solar system, leaving gasoline behind.
Smartwatches
Although it’s true that smartwatches exist now, thanks to technological advances, they are very different from what was initially imagined. But this is another example of a prediction that surprisingly came true.
Internet
In 1879, Edward Page wrote ‘The Senator’s Daughter’, a story discussing an unimaginable technology that would allow reading news in real-time from anywhere in the world, something like today’s social media networks.
Online Shopping
For several years now, the idea of buying your favorite items from the comfort of your home has been around, and undoubtedly, it’s now one of the preferred ways for many to acquire new things.
Online Courses
A famous futuristic illustrator, Arthur Radebaugh, showed his vision of what classes would be like in the future. Teachers and students would no longer have to worry about going to classrooms, as they would have devices with cameras, screens, and keyboards to take classes remotely.
This happened some years ago when, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we had to stay in our homes for over a year.
Virtual Reality
It’s incredible how the excitement for virtual reality has existed for several years now. So much so that there was a belief in the possibility of creating a kind of lens to enter the virtual world, which are not very different from those available on the market today.
Solar Energy in Homes
This idea was very popular in the mid-20th century. An illustration even appeared in the Toronto Star Weekly newspaper explaining how solar energy would work in homes.
Videogames
In the 1960s, television was a marvel for many, which is why many predictions are related to this device. For example, in an edition of Popular Science magazine, they proposed the use of external objects to interact with what was happening on television, as a kind of precursor to video games.
Certainly, human ambition increases with each passing year, and the astonishing technological advances are proof of that.
This article was written in spanish by Nayely Aguilera in Cultura Colectiva