A phone in your pocket? I told you so in 1963…

Someday, Mansfielders will carry their telephones in their pockets.

This was the headline of the Mansfield News-Journal on Thursday, 18 April 1963.

Technology as imagined in 1963

The report informed readers not to expect the “pocket phone” to be available immediately, though Frederick Huntsman, telephone company commercial manager said “this telephone is far in the future, commercially.”

“Right now, it’s a laboratory development, and it’s workable, allowing the carrier to make and answer calls wherever he may be.

“Other telephoning of the future includes a kitchen loud-speaking telephone, and a visual image telephone.

“The kitchen instrument can be used as a regular telephone, a loud speaking phone if the housewife happens to be busy preparing a meal, or as an intercom station for the home,” the report said.

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Phones to capture moments

The report also speaks of visual images on phones.

“The visual image telephone allows the parties to converse by way of a microphone and loudspeaker while a miniature television camera transmits the image.

“The ‘TV’ phone also will have a writing signature transmission system and a conversation tape recorder.”

One small step for mankind…

Fast forward 59 years to September 2022 and we are not only seeing telephones in our pockets that can transmit visual images with video but computers that fold into a phone the size of your palm.

And it fits neatly into your pocket. However, it’s not only mobile phones making this giant leap.

Technology has evolved at such a rapid rate that even computers and now watches that can measure your heart rate, blood pressure and check your ECG are donned by almost everyone.

The future is now

The generation of today spoke about the wonderful technology that would be available in the year 2000, spawning a plethora of TV shows on what the future would be like.

Well, we are living it, and it’s connected in every way.

Even if some of the other wonderful toys are not at our disposal yet.

Such as the Back To The Future hoverboard Marty McFly used when he time-travelled with Doc Emmett Brown to 21 October 2015 in a car that nobody could fly.

The best tech yet to come

There’s a lot more to come even if the hoverboard or flying cars have not been perfected yet, but like the article in the newspaper 59 years ago, we cannot even begin to imagine what comes next.

The future of technology looks bright and exciting and makes life a whole lot easier, like me writing this story on my foldable phone that many at one time never imagined it.

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