prophetic AT&T commercials

[king bloo]

How Tom Selleck predicted the future of tech

August 12, 2011: 2:07 PM ET

Spokesman Tom Selleck makes a total of 12 predictions in these freakishly prophetic 1993 AT&T ads. Every single one of them came true.



FORTUNE -- These freakishly prophetic AT&T (T) TV spots from 1993 have been online for a few years. But All Things Digital noticed them today, and I'm sure many of us hadn't seen them since they first ran, if ever. Spokesman Tom Selleck makes a total of 12 predictions, posed as questions -- and every single one of them has come true. "Have you ever watched the movie you wanted to, the moment you wanted to?" Selleck asks. "You will," he answers

[video=youtube;TZb0avfQme8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=TZb0avfQme8[/video]

In some cases, the parallels to present reality are breathtaking, such as the depiction of GPS, teleconferencing and tablets (though it's used for "faxing.")

There might be a few quibbles, but they are only that. And even in the quibble-worthy cases, reality is actually better than the prediction. The online book-reading looks pretty cumbersome compared to the Kindle (AMZN), and the automatic toll-booth payment looks dangerously clumsy compared to today's electronic collection systems.

The least accurate prediction is when Selleck asks "Have you ever tucked your baby in from a phone booth?" A phone booth? Bwha-ha-ha-ha!

This was AT&T, so of course there were phone booths. Which brings us to the one truly inaccurate prediction of the bunch: For every case of advanced technology, the spots promised that "the company that will bring it to you" would be AT&T. Turned out, not so much.

K...

The faxing shits from the beach, AT&T released that very same device the same year. It's called the AT&T EO. I know because I wanted one BADLY when they were first released in '93. They had a cellular wireless modem built in which could also be used to make calls if you bought the handset accessory for it. You could fax from it and it had a touch/stylus interface and some good software to boot. It was entirely too expensive for most people (IIRC, $1000 back in '93 without the handset) so it didn't take off.

GPS was already available and in use in the early 90's, but it was fuck-all expensive. AT&T was probably trying to figure out a way to make it cheap.

AT&T DID create the video phone decades earlier, but the communications infrastructure at the time couldn't support full motion video like it showed in the commercials. Because it required both parties to own a videophone, and the cost of those phones were high as hell (plus you had to pay extra on your phone bill for the video to even work), no one bought into 'em. Last time I saw 'em, they were used on one season of The Real World so people in the house could video chat with their families.

In 1993, SGI had teleconferencing down pat. The SGI Indy shipped in '93 with a webcam that shitted all over webcams released up through 2000. Teleconferencing was a no-brainer on a nework with SGI boxes on it.

 

[Darius]

lmao!!!! bruh nobody ever give a shit about your threads or your posts

 

[Idi Amin Dada]

Not really prophetic though. I'm sure the stuff that's commonplace now has been in RnD for decades.

 

[phantom0900]

Not really prophetic though. I'm sure the stuff that's commonplace now has been in RnD for decades.

co sign, engineers knew they could create this stuff; all those products are are different data transfer applications. they just had to wait till connection speed were fast enough.