I always love looking at optimistic views of the future from the past… and here’s a good one. The Usborne Book of the Future: A Trip in Time to the Year 2000 and Beyond, which was originally published in 1979. Chapters include “Robots: Science and medicine”, “Future Cities: Homes and living” and “Star Travel: Transport and travel”. (via Boing Boing)
It reminds me of the old EPCOT attractions from Walt Disney World like Horizons and Spaceship Earth that were also built around that time.
If you like this it’s also worth checking out the Paleofuture blog for all kinds of fantastic retro visions of the future.
It seems sitting on the Disney board gets you all kinds of perks. Distant Creations report that an audio-animatronic (1970s, in-garage) Steve Jobs has been added to EPCOT’s Spaceship Earth attraction as part of its recent face-lift.
Spaceship Earth is scheduled to re-open in February with a new theme (more about technology and less about communication), narrated by Judi Dench. (via The Disney Blog)
Ever the fan of bringing old cameras back into production (and charging a nice premium for them), Lomo are resuscitating the Diana camera back. The medium format camera has been out of production for nearly 35 years but will be made available again this month as the Diana+, joining the LC-A+ on their production line.
The starter kit, which includes Diana+ Camera (with lens cap and shutter lock), Diana Vignettes photo and story book and Instruction manual is available direct from Lomo for £27.55 (or $50, if you’re on the other side of the pond). (via Boing Boing)
Apple have just announced, as many have predicted, the iPod Touch. Basically an iPhone without the phone. It comes in 8Gb and 16Gb flavours (which is far too small a capacity for me to even consider buying — I have enough trouble with 60Gb!) and has built-in wifi for browsing the web and spending your hard-earned cash at iTunes while you wait for your delayed train (or while at their new friend Starbucks’ place). Still, it looks cool.
Also announced:
An all-metal 160Gb iPod classic
A chubby new 8 or 16Gb iPod nano (with coverflow and video playback)
iPod nano in new colours
and a cheaper 8Gb iPhone (no 4Gb, it seems)
If you want more geekery, Engadget have a hands-on with both the iPod nano and iPod touch.
In the unlikely event that you’ve read this article before reading Boing Boing this morning, head on over there now and check out their gorgeous new redesign. The new simplified appearance was created by my friend Jemma at Sans Nom and it now has a sister blog, Boing Boing Gadgets. Enjoy, but please come back! :) | Comments (0) »
The iPhone Dissected. Literally. You’ve just got home with a $500 state-of-the-art* mobile phone. What’s the first thing you’re going to want to do? Rip it apart! (via Boing Boing)
WeFi is a new collaborative wifi mapping tool that records open wifi networks that your computer can “see” and uploads them to a central database. Anyone can then browse their website for access points anywhere in the world and see them on a Google-powered map. The ultimate goal is to “make open Wi-Fi act more like a wireless infrastructure that can compete with 3G networks, except freely created and shared by the users.”
Wonderful idea, though their site seems to think I’m in Slough. (via Boing Boing)
Disney’s marvellous new autonomous audio-animatronic, the Muppet Mobile Lab, visited Pixar on another test-run. The Disney blog has a great video of it in action. You can also find some photos on Flickr.
Gabe over at Penny Arcade now has a Playstation 3 and throws out some negatives and positives from his short experience with the console. Bear in mind that the EU’s PS3 is different so, hopefully, ours won’t “burn with the heat of a million suns”. | Comments (0) »
The guardian reports that the PS3 will launch on the 23rd March 2007 for £425 for the 60Gb model. Ouch. The 20Gb model will be released later, depending on demand, at an unknown cost. Sony haven’t announced how many will be released to the UK but have said that one million will be shipped to the EU. | Comments (0) »
The Microsoft Zune 2006-2006: Penny Arcade on the Zune and the announcement of the iPhone: “I can hardly look at it now, it’s like holding a dead squirrel. On its 4:3 screen - the exact ratio of obsolescence - I can see destroyed futures.” | Comments (0) »
Steve Jobs has announced the development of the Apple iPhone in his Keynote speech at Macworld 2007, which incorporates:
4 or 8Gb widescreen video iPod
Quad-band + EDGE mobile phone (no 3G)
2 megapixel camera
3.5 inch 480×320 160dpi touch screen
802.11b/g wifi + Bluetooth
Now, I’m not particularly interested in this Apple phone as it’s won’t be released for months — if at all — in the US alone, has a sub-standard 2 megapixel camera, is locked to one network provider and has no 3G capability (this will have to be included for the European version) and too little storage space to replace my iPod as an MP3 player (quite how 4Gb is enough for a movie player I don’t know). I am, however, interested to see the new interface incorporated into a future generation iPod — one with a decent-sized hard drive storage space. I’ll also be interested to hear if any games are being developed for it; the touch screen would work wonders for many games — something the Nintendo DS has already proved.
Also announced/confirmed were Apple TV, a set-top box for streaming stuff from iTunes to your TV, the AirPort Extreme wifi base station, movies from Paramount for iTunes, some deals with Yahoo! and some other crap like a couple of new TV commercials.
Update: A couple of interesting comparison articles here. Kottke mocks up an iPhone out of card and compares it to other, familiar, devices for size and TNL compare some current phone specs to Apple’s offering. They use an odd choice of Nokia phone for comparison purposes, though; wouldn’t an N80 have been more appropriate?
Have you been wanting to race against (and generally gloat about how much fitter you are than) your friends, but don’t have a pair of those expensive Nike running shoes with the hole in the bottom? Fear not, SwitchEasy have introduced the RunAway AnyShoe Adaptor for just 6 quid. You’ll still need to bring your own iPod Nano and Nike+ kit though. | Comments (0) »
The 10 Gadgets that Changed the World: “The wheel. The plow. The gun. The electric light. The radio. The chip. The untidy march of human ingenuity and innovation has led you here, to our list of the 10 most life-altering devices of the modern era.” | Comments (0) »
