I just had a read through Vannevar Bush’s famous “As We May Think”. At first I really had no idea what he was going on about. He talked about a special camera the size of a walnut, which could be triggered by the brain seeing something it found of interest and did not require a physical decision to capture a moment, but merely a subconscious one. I thought, “this sounds cool, I want one”, assuming it was merely another one of the superior technological prototypes at Google. I mean it’s not too far off from Google glasses. Then I spotted the date the article was published: July 1, 1945.

It’s intriguing when you look at technology from a historical perspective. Let’s compare the then to the now. At the time of Bush’s article, TV was still black and white. Not until 8 years later in 1953 was the first all-electronic colour TV introduced in the US. The solar panel cell came about in 1954, the first optic fibre was introduced in 1955, and the microwave oven debut was in 1946. For the beloved pocket tech that we have become accustomed to like the iPhone was still 62 years away. It’s strange when I try to imagine what life would be like without all the go-go-gadgets. Personally I think I’d prefer it. I’m a big fan of the outdoors, but often am too overrun with technology to put time aside and explore the world. That being said, I fully appreciate the benefits too!  Without Google Maps on my Smartphone, I would have ended up lost in dangerous places countless times during my overseas trip.

So we’ve looked 50 years into the past, but it’s so difficult to tell where the world will be in 50 years in the future. Here’s an experiment. If the Internet is still prospering, then I’ll be able to discover this blog post I wrote back in 2014. I’ll be 69 years old at the time, either as a cyborg because computers will have taken over, or living in perfect health due to science anti-age breakthroughs. Either way, I’ll be telling my hover-car to drop me off at the cinema to see Ironman 14 in 5D. I forgot my jacket at home, noproblem, I’ll just teleport there and pick it up. But wait, I won’t need my jacket because of global warming, right? Yes, a lot of these seem ridiculous, but I’m sure when mail postage was the only way of long-distance, communication, the idea of talking to a cousin 8000 kilometres away via a piece of plastic that you speak into one side and put the other side to your ear was absolutely absurd. Maybe in 2064 we will be able to tell what the future will hold, but right now there’s no real way to know. So I say just sit back, relax, and follow the world’s breakthrough advancements on Twitter.