10 Worst Technology Predictions of All Time
- "Tis is the season for predictions, so "Information Age" bravely goes out on this limb: Most technology predictions for 2010 won't come true. The more we learn about how innovation happens, the less straight the lines of advance look.
- (1) "Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further developments," said Roman engineer Julius Sextus Frontinus in 10 A.D.
- This end-of-progress view has been echoed many times, including by Charles Duell, commissioner for the U.S. Patent Office, who in 1899 said, (2) "Everything that can be invented has already been invented."
- Here are the rest of my Top 10 Worst Technology Predictions, which prove that when it comes to tech, optimism pays:
- (3) "The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys," Sir William Preece, chief engineer at the British Post Office, 1878.
- (4) "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" H.M. Warner, Warner Bros., 1927.
- (5) "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers," Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943. (apparently this one is highly disputed)
- (6) "Television won't be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night," Darryl Zanuck, 20th Century Fox, 1946. (wow)
- (7) "The world potential market for copying machines is 5,000 at most," IBM executives to the eventual founders of Xerox, 1959.
- (8) "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home," Ken Olsen, founder of mainframe-producer Digital Equipment Corp., 1977.
- (9) "No one will need more than 637 kb of memory for a personal computer?640K ought to be enough for anybody," Bill Gates, Microsoft, 1981. (claimed to be taken out of context, which I assume to be true - since it was probably correct at the time - p.s. anyone else have one of those snazzy Commodore 64s?)
- (10) "Next Christmas the iPod will be dead, finished, gone, kaput," Sir Alan Sugar, British entrepreneur, 2005.
- In "The View from Serendip," published in 1977, Clarke predicted the Internet: "Immediate access in the home via simple computer-type keyboards, and TV displays, to all the world's great libraries . . . And items needed for permanent reference could be printed off as soon as located on a copying machine?or filed magnetically in the home storage system."
- In the same book, he also forecast email and online news: "Facsimile services whereby letters, printed matter, etc. can be reproduced instantly. The physical delivery of mail and newspapers will thus be largely replaced by the orbital post office, and the orbital newspaper . "
