HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

⬐ mazelife

It's kind of funny to me that every single one of these more or less came true with one notable exception: "Have you ever carried your medical history in your wallet?" As it stands today, at least in the US, most people's medical history is still fragmented across dozens of proprietary, non-interoperable EMR systems or locked away in paper charts in doctors' offices. I can't think of a single company that's tried to play in the personal health portal space—Google included—that hasn't failed utterly.

Digitization of health data has increased massively since 93' of course, but the landscape is still completely Balkanized and there is a growing body of clinicians who believe healthcare IT is actively making healthcare worse.[1] Put another way, the idea of a complete, centralized, useful medical medical history being available for everyone in the US still seems like a pipe dream. Interesting discussion to be had about how, in this particular industry, progress has been so slow...

[1]https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/11/12/why-doctors-ha... and https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/16/magazine/heal... for example

⬐ anitil

Australia is adopting a single source for medical history. I'm half-excited and half-terrified. It will be a goldmine for research over time. And possibly (probably) a goldmine for bad actors.

⬐ waste_monk

I, and everyone I've talked to about it, has opted out of the MyHealth record system.

⬐ hnick

Same. Nefarious purposes aside, their track record with technology over here seems to make a "Nobody could see it coming!" data loss moment inevitable.

⬐ anitil

I knowingly chose not to opt out, despite being terrified at the coming leaks. Everyone non-technical I know didn't know or care it was happening.

⬐ discordance

Context for those outside of Australia - The Australian government developed a digital health record system, My Health Record, without ensuring proper protection of the data (42 data breaches in 2017-18 [1]).

There were also no safeguards or legislation in place to prevent employers, insurers or authorities from being granted access to your health record at launch.

1: https://www.digitalhealth.gov.au/about-the-agency/publicatio...

⬐ gowld

It may not be unified, but you can install the app for each of your provider's EMR systems (which are mostly all front ends to the same Epic Systems multi-tenant backend)

⬐ mcculley

I went through some medical issues a few years ago and took to carrying all of my medical records on a tiny USB flash drive. I took this to a few consultations and doctors could not use it due to policy and/or fear of plugging an unvetted device into their system. It's a terrible outcome of the modern security landscape that the only path is cloud storage for our medical records.

⬐ SCAQTony

They were so close to nailing "...tuck in your baby" but they had to add a phone booth. LOL

⬐ mygo

I consider FaceTime or Skype to be a good enough representation of this. It's still in the spirit of it. Something along the lines of "phones will be able to do video calls. And so wherever you are while you're away -- at a hotel or even on the side of the street -- you will be able to tuck your baby".

The only thing they missed was that you'd be able to carry such phones on your person, in your pocket. They couldn't fathom that we'd get really good at packing all that functionality into something so small.

⬐ rocky1138

Taiwan does this, as far as I know.

⬐ CoolGuySteve

In Ontario 15 years ago, my health card had a mag stripe they could swipe. But I don't know if it pulled up my medical file or if that stripe is still on the health cards.

Part of it, along with my photo, a hologram, and 5 year expiry date, was really meant to prevent insurance fraud from out of province people. ie: Americans.

⬐ frosted-flakes

Ontario health cards still have the mag stripe, 2D bar code, and photo hologram. I don't think they've changed since the old red and white cards that didn't have photos.

⬐ themagician

This was right at end of of life for AT&T as an innovator, but I don't think people really appreciate just how much AT&T did for technology. Sure, they had a monopoly. Government backed, really. But you can trace just about every piece of modern tech back to Bell Labs or someone who worked there. The transistor itself, UNIX, the C programming language, the laser, CCDs, solar panels, and the list goes on. I don't think there's ever been a company before or since that has done so much.

I can't help but wonder what a modern day Bell Labs would be able to do.

⬐ brownbat

Bell did amazing research under that monopoly, the downside was that they also buried some of it.

They had magnetic storage and an answering machine in the 30s, but were terrified that it might reduce demand for telephone services, so they suppressed the technology for sixty years.

https://io9.gizmodo.com/how-ma-bell-shelved-the-future-for-6...

Maybe that one would have never come to light without their help anyway, but they also fought inventions of outsiders that touched the telephone network, under the monopoly protection laws that allowed them to control anything "connected to" their network.

Probably the most absurd example is when they fought to stop people from using a physical barrier to make phone calls a little less loud:

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-battle-over-net-ne...

⬐ Defenestresque

A few months ago I ordered a book on a whim called "The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation." [0]

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it and how much I learned. There were amazing minds at Bell Labs who were given free reign to innovate (as a direct result of AT&T's huge monopoly and revenue stream) and ended up laying the groundwork for many ideas and concepts we take for granted today.

The book is so dense with information and anecdotes but I'd still consider it a page-turner. I highly recommend it.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Idea-Factory-Great-American-Innovatio...

⬐ ChuckCottrill37

There is a 'modern day' Bell Labs. Look at Air-Gig (for example). I worked with one of the top AT&T inventors (just earned his 200th U.S. Patent). Nokia Labs owns what was Lucent, which was the direct descendant of Bell Labs.

⬐ themagician

Everyone has patents. That’s not impressive. Bell Labs had like a dozen Nobel Prizes.

⬐ corey_moncure

The first time I ever saw live video teleconferencing was an AT&T device in the Epcot Center dome. I think it must have been around 1993.

⬐ dustindiamond

They also had Sega Genenis networked together with modems, maybe?

⬐ rayiner

I’m convinced AT&T did all those things because it was a monopoly. Look at what happened to Xerox after the DOJ killed it’s copier monopoly by forcing it to license its patents. PARC rapidly went downhill. Companies in highly competitive markets can’t really afford capital intensive innovation.

⬐ tormeh

This. Competition and rational buyers with perfect information will move prices close to production costs plus risk compensation. There's no room for anything more than incremental innovation and quick wins at those kinds of companies.

⬐ lurquer

"Have you ever watched a twenty-six year old commercial on your phone? You will."

⬐ spaceflunky

"Have you ever argued with thousands of complete strangers in another country while you sit on the toilet? You will."

⬐ rudolfwinestock

One Usenet signature[0] that I saw during the mid-1990s was "Have you ever taken credit for something that hasn't even been invented yet? You will."

[0] Yes, I'm dating myself.

⬐ BrandonMarc

I REMEMBER THOSE! Wow.

Really, that campaign is a great way of showing younger folk just what they're taking for granted, and what used to be thought of as "futuristic", and how close the present matches the predicted future.

⬐ mojomark

Me too, and that's a good point. Judging from comnents above, I don't think viewers today (who weren't used to life before the internet and mobile) don't really grasp the level of foresight required at the time to be so spot on (with the exception of the phone booth still being a thing).

I'm sure there's another name for it, but I call it the "Bob Dylan Effect". Basically, if you were born after or too young to remember something having a revolutionary and influential in scope as Dylan was (for music and culture), the impact becomes so woven into the fabric of life that in the wake of the revolution, it's difficult for most people who didn't live through it to grasp the magnutude of the impact.

I have a lot of friends who hear Dylan and say "meh, sounds like the same old folk music, I don't get what the big deal is about". But that's the point! Where do you think that sound and approach to music came from? Seems to be the same case with the internet and mobile. Everything seems obvious now, so the ideas of people who really were ahead of their time, simply seem (to some people) like obvious inevitabilities, when that's not at all the case.

Note that something like the moon landing doesn't fall into this "Bob Dylan affect". The moon landing today is still as captivating as it was when it happened. That's because the space race didn't persist, and people aren't taking vacations to Moon City, so we're not really in the wake of a space revolution. But, you bet your sweet bippy that in 80 years, well after Musk gets humans to Mars, there will be someone saying "meh, what's the big deal - of course we were going to get to Mars"... when in reality, without a visionary like Musk, we'd still be floating around the planet and moon poking weightless blobs of water (a.k.a. videos I can't stop watching once I start).

⬐ pvg

don't really grasp the level of foresight required at the time

Is there anything much to grasp there, though? These are fairly straightforward near-future sort of extrapolation of then-existing technology, for an ad. "A colour Newton that actually works and you can use on the beach" is hardly some mind-blowing prediction nor was it intended to be.

⬐ None

None

⬐ xsmasher

At a time where it took hours to download a picture, pagers were more popular than cell phones, WML/WAP wasn't even a dream yet, and e-Commerce did not exist, these ads were pretty prescient.

⬐ pvg

Sure, but they are prescient in a completely obvious way. The bit I'm questioning is the 'level of foresight'. 'Faxing from the beach' required exactly zero foresight.

⬐ LeoPanthera

> (with the exception of the phone booth still being a thing).

Many phone booths are becoming wifi hotspots, so, with some minor historical revision, they're not too far out.

⬐ sophacles

TvTropes calls the phenomenon you're describing "Seinfeld is unfunny". Worth a read if you haven't come across it before:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunn...

⬐ nyolfen

i’m reminded of SA’s “read history of philosophy backwards”:

https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/11/read-history-of-philos...

> My hypothesis – and I don’t know if it’s true – is that this is only cliched now because Sartre won. The point of studying Sartre is not to learn that you choose your own identity, but to read him backward – to start with this idea that choosing your own identity is obvious, and then read Sartre to learn exactly how controversial it was at the time and what sorts of arguments Sartre had to go through to get people to accept it, and eventually understand the position that the original reader of Sartre was supposed to have started with. If you succeed, you might still believe that you choose your own identity, but you’ll also understand that this isn’t an obvious necessary fact of the universe, that there used to be people who believed you didn’t and that they had some good arguments too.

⬐ bane

These kinds of future looking ideas are always terribly wrong in the small details, so its important to look at what the general prediction was. The thinkers behind these things had to settle a vague predictive idea like "video phones" on some kind of physical representation in order to ground it enough to make the advertisement, but didn't know enough about the small bits the future would hold to make it exactly what's come to pass.

So you can sort of score how good future predictions are based on these broad ideas even if the particulars didn't work out. "People will generally start to commute on personal flying vehicles" is one that hasn't really come to pass in any form, so the it's a bad prediction. But these ones are really stellar.

I think even more importantly, these ones were so provocative and the grounding in the particulars was so plausible that an entire generation of engineers grew up remembering these video and trying to make the prediction self-fulfilling. Thus these videos were both drivers of innovation as well as prophecy. There's an overly academic book on this topic with a great title that I think captures this well: "The Dreams our Stuff is Made of"

The biggest prediction here that underlies all of these predictions is that there is going to be a global communications capability that enables most of the things in the ads -- and it was going to be so ubiquitous, commoditized and possess so much bandwidth and low latency that anybody could use it anywhere. In 1993, this wasn't a forgone conclusion -- Windows 95 didn't even ship with a built-in TCP/IP stack.

The obvious thing they missed was miniaturization and device convergence. Most of the activities here involve people still going to fixed or installed devices -- the smartphone was never considered.

⬐ kevstev

> Windows 95 didn't even ship with a built-in TCP/IP stack.

Are you sure about that? Win 3.11 did not, you had to install trumpet winsock, but win95 did have winsock.dll shipped with it IIRC. You may have had to separately install it, but it was on your handy win95 cd-rom IIRC

⬐ ingenium

If I remember correctly, the original release did not. Only in 95a or 95b did it have it.

⬐ pcurve

I’m over 40 so I remember this watching this as high schooler who grew up on Hayes and usrobotics courier modems dialing out to local bbs in search of free pr0n.

Anyway... these appear pretty prescient. However given technologies available in 1993, I actually find almost all of these pretty laughable as examples.

Would’ve been cool if it were made in 1973 though.

⬐ jedberg

There was a certain sense of accomplishment when you had to wait 30 minutes for a single jpg to download...

⬐ mti27

I remember when these commercials came out, they seemed annoying - just corporate hype with nothing real. There was even a parody on some show (SNL?) that made fun of them: "Have you ever been seduced by your toaster? You will." Of course the real predictor from 1993 was Demolition Man: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnSIOlF132w

⬐ djmips

This looks like some valid and interesting info on these commercials. https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2018/01/04/how-atts-you-w...

⬐ masonic

It's hilarious that there are ultimately three overlay ads obscuring the text of that article.

⬐ beefman

Posted to YouTube 13 years after they aired, 13 years ago.

⬐ jedieaston

Have you ever had your phone gain access to a "5G" network with a simple software update? Or had that same update not actually increase the speed of your network traffic? You will. And the company that'll bring it to you? AT&T.

⬐ ChuckCottrill37

AT&T is the combination of several "Baby Bells", including Bellsouth. I worked at Bellsouth (Advanced Networks) in the early-mid 90's. Bellsouth was a technology leader among the Baby Bells (but were too cautious buying other Bell's). Anyway, there were a ton of innovations at Bellsouth, but Marketing was always one of the biggest drivers, as was Finance. And that is what prevented 'Fiber to the Home', and so many other innovations. Tons of great ideas never escaped the labs, because there was no vision for the market, or fear that one technology would cannibalize other existing revenue streams.

⬐ bitwize

"driven cross country without stopping for directions", "paid a toll without slowing down", "unlocked your front door with the sound of your voice", "attended a meeting in your bare feet", and "watched the movie you wanted, when you wanted" all turned out pretty spot on. I'd be willimg to give them "sent a fax from the beach" if an emailed PDF counts as a fax.

⬐ rmason

Anyone think it strange that a phone company wouldn't see the emergence of the smartphone?

Guffawed when I saw those phone booth picture phones.

⬐ msla

> Anyone think it strange that a phone company wouldn't see the emergence of the smartphone?

> Guffawed when I saw those phone booth picture phones.

It's how these things usually work: The Future Is The Same, But Different

The Same: Things basically click along they way they do now. Want to make a call away from home or office? Use a payphone. Most natural thing in the world.

But Different: Well, payphones aren't going to stay the same, are they? Videophones have been a Coming Thing for decades now, so obviously we'll have Video Payphones.

All of those Coming Things. Where have they all gone?

The interesting thing to me is this: Car phones had existed for decades by that point. They'd slimmed down to bag phones for the masses, and bricks for Gordon Gekko and his proteges. But AT&T didn't prognosticate their continued slimming driving payphones into irrelevance. You don't even need the smartphone concept, which was a truly interesting convergence of cell phone and computer, to get the idea that "Cell phones getting smaller" leads to "I can carry a phone with me" leads to "I don't need a payphone" leads to payphones no longer existing.

Oh, and Bag Phone, because nobody else seems to remember them:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Bag_Phone

⬐ ssewell

Good insight! Really rings true when the guy "faxes" from the beach. They had the foresight for ubiquitous remote access, but not for a modern messaging platform. :)

⬐ philwelch

The collective imagination of all of humanity, when presented with new technology 20 years in the future, is always going to discover implications that any futurist or group of futurists would never think of.

⬐ dredmorbius

2001, in 1968:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=5T1UGfm_OMM

Even accurately predicts portrait-mode video.

See also the "minisec" from Arthur C. Clarke's Imperial Earth (1976):

Duncan Makenzie had a new minisec, and he was not quite sure how parts of it worked.

The 'Sec was the standard size of all such units, determined by what can fit comfortably in the human hand. At a quick glance, it did not differ greatly from one of the small electronic calculators that had started coming into general use at the end of the twentieth century. It was, however, infinitely more versatile, and Duncan could not imagine what life would be like without it.

Because of the finite size of clumsy human fingers, it had no more controls than that of its ancestor of three hundred years earlier. There were fifty neat little studs; each, however, had an unlimited number of functions, according to the mode of operation - for the character visible on each stud changed according to the mode.

http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1267

Others:

https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/93979/did-science-...

⬐ CamperBob2

To be fair it was AT&T who took a chance on the iPhone, after the other major carriers had told Jobs to go pound sand and industry figures like Ballmer had publicly laughed at him.

I could see him using these commercials in his pitch to AT&T. "You said we would. It's time."

⬐ xattt

Cingular did, who was then bought up by AT&T.

⬐ kxrm

Cingular had nothing to do with AT&T. SBC and Bell South (2 baby bells) were who had Cingular, SBC acquired AT&T and took the name in 2005.

⬐ walrus01

Cingular was the cellular carrier that signed the contract to be the exclusive carrier for the iPhone, in something like January 2007.

Between the time they signed it and the release of the iPhone at retail, they were acquired by att cellular.

⬐ kxrm

AT&T by that time was a completely different company. Southwestern Bell is now who owns the trademark and name AT&T. The AT&T company that made this commercial was largely irrelevant by 2005.

⬐ jonas21

For these ads to succeed, they not only had to present a vision of the future, they also had to do so in a way that someone watching the ad could understand in just a few seconds. That doesn't leave much time for explanation.

So they chose to present things in a way that the average person in 1993 could relate to. Everyone would have been familiar with calling home from a pay phone when traveling -- so it would make sense to present a future where video calling is done from a pay phone. That doesn't necessarily mean AT&T thought this is exactly how the future would play out.

⬐ hrktb

I might not be getting it, didn’t the videos also feature a PDA like device which is basically how they saw the future of portability, which is not far from our smartphones I think.

⬐ mdasen

The tablet that they show sending a fax from the beach is essentially a smartphone. The thing is that smartphones weren't popular until Apple even though they had existed.

Palm, Nokia/Symbian, Danger, and Microsoft had been pushing smartphones before the iPhone came out. BlackBerry was pushing non-touch smartphones as well. The issue is that none of them really had a compelling user experience before Apple came along. You can say that the iPhone was obvious, but no one else saw to use capacitive touchscreens at the time. Even after the iPhone came out, everyone thought that the lack of a physical keyboard was Apple's hubris and would be their downfall. Windows Mobile, Symbian, and PalmOS didn't integrate a first-class web browsing experience. Heck, I remember Windows Mobile emphasizing scroll bars rather than the natural movement that Apple introduced with the iPhone, never mind pinch to zoom.

Apple came along and showed everyone what the point of having a smartphone in your pocket was. You'd have the best music experience. You'd have the full internet for any question you'd ever have. You'd have maps. You'd have a great photos experience. Part of that is that they recognized that the capacitive technology they'd been using in iPods and trackpads for years could be used as part of a fuller operating system. Part of it is that they really spent a lot of time figuring out how people could use a touchscreen well. Others had just tried to take desktop UI concepts and put them on a touch device.

AT&T saw the emergence of the smartphone. Heck, Microsoft, Palm, Nokia/Symbian, BlackBerry, Danger, and even Google tried to build it before Apple (Google was targeting Symbian and had to "go back to the drawing board" when the iPhone was introduced). They all missed the key affordances that would drive consumer adoption. Google's pre-iPhone prototypes were basically BlackBerry/Symbian competitors. Microsoft wanted scroll bars, a start menu, and windows. Even after the iPhone, many tried pushing devices with keyboards: Moto Droid, HTC's first Android device, the Palm Pre, etc. It's not about saying "we'll have X in the future!" People saw smartphones/tablets. Heck, Star Trek had tablets in late 80s, but they didn't need them to be usable, just props. People just never figured out how to make them compelling for users before Apple did.

⬐ rmason

In 1993 I was carrying a bag phone. For millennials it was the size of a woman's purse and had an external antenna.

But by 2001 or so I had a Palm Phone. It was essentially a smart phone but it lacked color, weighed five pounds, you needed a stylus and there was no app store. My non-tech friends who didn't see the value of the web when I showed it to them in 1994 just laughed at me. They told me with complete wonderment, why would anyone ever want the internet in their pocket?

But the same mainframe execs who never saw either the mini or microcomputer coming also never thought that trend would continue.

⬐ msla

> The tablet that they show sending a fax from the beach is essentially a smartphone.

Except for the fact it's sending a fax.

Smartphones don't send faxes, but they could. They don't because they exist in a world where faxing someone something is a niche application, and approximately nobody would buy a smartphone based on how well it faxes. The technological culture is different. The world has changed in more ways than just "We can stick a good computer in your pocket and power it all day long" and AT&T didn't predict that.

I realize I'm partially repeating some elements of your comment, but I do have my own point to make here: In looking at history, avoid Presentism. Try to see the past on its own terms, not through the lens of the modern day. That is a learned skill, and not having it is shown by crediting people in the past with predicting things they never thought of.

⬐ jrib

Keep in mind they were trying to convey the concept of sending a document electronically to the 1993 public. "Fax" is an easy widely understood stand-in for that even if we're not literally faxing today.

⬐ mdasen

That's the point. Apple showed people what could be done with smartphone technology. Literally, Steve Jobs got on stage and played with music, maps, the web, etc. in front of people to introduce how the iPhone would be important to them. Everyone else was trying to find uses for the technology and they weren't coming up with anything compelling.

Smartphones (and PDAs) existed before the iPhone and people were trying to find that compelling combination and they were coming up with garbage like, "um, what about faxing?"

Yes, AT&T (and everyone else) didn't anticipate the iPhone, but everyone anticipated a good computer in your pocket powered all day long - they just couldn't make it a compelling experience. The iPhone is the meticulous design of applications, features, and affordances that make it a compelling user experience. Everyone kinda anticipated "internet on phones". The iPhone showed how the internet on phones could be a positive experience. Everyone anticipated music on phones. The iPhone showed how that could be the best music UI.

I don't think there's anything that the iPhone did that hadn't been done before, but poorly. The point is that a lot of it is bringing many different things together in a cohesive, compelling product. You could have bought a Windows Mobile device before the iPhone came out, but it was just crummy. Saying that it's because AT&T shows it faxing is a bit of a cop out. Microsoft had PocketPC devices for around 7 years before the iPhone. The name is literally a computer in your pocket. Everyone has been anticipating a computer in your pocket for a long time. Apple made it compelling.

It's possible that you don't remember all the talk about pocket computing, all the ads, all the failed products. They were there. Everyone was not only anticipating them, but trying to make them. They just didn't know what they were for, what the UI needed to be like, what affordances users wanted, etc.

⬐ philwelch

At a certain point in time, you could download music from the internet and burn it onto a CD and nobody would find that strange. Faxes could have easily had the same fate. In a way, it's equally weird to send faxes from a smartphone than to make phone calls from a smartphone.

⬐ None

None

⬐ scarface74

I have had to send a fax from my iPhone before using efax. There is a reason the company still exists in 2019....

⬐ GeorgeTirebiter

I built the wireless modem that sent that fax. People often forget how primitive cell connections were. AMPS was the system, and the A or B ('B' as in 'Bell') carriers were your only choices. PenPoint OS had the notion of sporadic / opportunistic connections, and that's how one did email -- batched it up so when you'd plug in the RJ-11 you'd send/receive in batches.

The wireless (cellphone) capability would add a new dimension: on-the-go connectivity. In theory.

One of our sales guys was going to NYC and asked for us to load 'the latest build' and against our best judgement, we did. He reported back next day to us that he had successfully send a FAX to a potential client from the back seat of his cab. We all thought "What the heck! We never said that would work!" and then, "Oh, wow, looks like that worked!"

⬐ tosh

I wonder what today’s version of this campaign would be like. Ideas?

⬐ makerofspoons

Have you ever moved to a new city... to escape sea level rise?

Have you ever taken a bath... but found there's not enough fresh water to go around?

Have you ever defended your home... from a gang of post-collapse cannibals?

I dunno the future feels less fun now.

⬐ robrenaud

You'll able to converse quickly/fluently/easily in real time with someone who you don't share a language with with speech recognition/machine translation/speech synthesis.

⬐ toast0

I'm pretty sure there was a you will commercial about talking to someone in a language you didn't know.

⬐ JonathonW

Spaceship Earth at Epcot (Disney World) actually featured this in its 1994 update (coincidentally, sponsored by and prominently featuring AT&T). (The overall theme of the ride, under AT&T's sponsorship, was the history of communications-- ultimately culminating in a scene depicting a vision of the future of global communications thanks to the internet.)

It may be the only thing out of that scene that hasn't really come to fruition yet. They show video calling-- we have that. They show telemedicine-- we have that. But it turns out that real-time, speech to speech translation is Really Hard, even as text-to-text translation has gotten massively better over the past few years.

⬐ kevin_thibedeau

Black Mirror

⬐ ilikeatari

Possibly AR and wearables. Getting the machine even closer to the human?

⬐ derekp7

Combined with a healthy dose of AI to minimize the pain of interacting with the machines, and to have information that you need right when you need it.

Communication with implants, such as continuous glucose monitoring to present you with a customized restaurant menu for what you should be eating right now (or meal planner for home, etc).

⬐ DamnInteresting

Have you ever taken a nap in your car...on your way to work?

Have you ever eaten a steak...that didn't come from an animal?

Have you ever had an iMax movie theater...in your eyeglasses?

⬐ fimdomeio

or for the less optimistic:

Have you have missed talking to a real humam being face to face, you will.

Have you have missed going outside without a radiation suit, you will.

⬐ cstrat

the Black Mirror version...

⬐ ryandrake

Have you ever been denied a loan because of a tweet?

Has your car ever changed its route home to pass by businesses who bid the most?

Have you ever paid more for rent because of your search history?

You will!

⬐ expertentipp

These are so much less exciting...

⬐ LeoPanthera

I'm sorry but I really have to point out that it is IMAX, not iMax. It's not an Apple product. Apparently the name is supposed to sound like "Eye-max".

⬐ DamnInteresting

Thank you for the kind correction.

⬐ sxates

Qwest had similar commercials in 1999 [0]. "Every movie ever made any time" was kind of mind blowing at the time - then 10 years later it happened.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ9qcp6Lcno

⬐ xsmasher

Sounds like Willem Dafoe doing the voiceover.

⬐ revel

then almost as soon as it became possible everything got segmented into product groups by distributors

What a shame

⬐ waynecochran

Gotta love Tom Selleck's voice.

⬐ DonHopkins

Have you ever ordered McDonald's food from a feces covered touch screen?

⬐ doitLP

Wow I think the video caller is a young Jenna Elfman.

⬐ jgrahamc

It is.

⬐ dmitryminkovsky

These are mentioned a few times in the Internet History Podcast [0]. Glad to finally see them.

(AT&T also ran the first major banner ads on the web, on Hotwired, also extensively covered on the Internet History Podcast)

[0] http://www.internethistorypodcast.com

⬐ kxrm

AT&T of that era could see all these futuristic possibilities, but couldn't see it's own demise.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T_Corporation#Acquisition...

⬐ myself248

I haven't even clicked the link. And my mind plays back...

"And the company that'll bring it to you is AT&T"

That's still etched into my mind all these years later. I've made jokes about this call-and-response as recently as a few weeks ago.

VERY effective campaign.

⬐ scarface74

It made me think about the hosts of the Today show discussing the Internet in 1994.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlJku_CSyNg

⬐ phillco

> You will

True

> And the company that will bring it to you? AT&T

Less true

⬐ rocky1138

These commercials had a profound impact on me as a kid. I was 10 in 1993, so I was at just the right age to be thinking about the future for the first time.

⬐ olivermarks

The mobile carriers have cleaned up running the internet data toll roads...we pay for bandwidth and 'free' content...

⬐ slim

I'm unable to predict similar changes on our way of life happening in the 2019-2045 timeframe

⬐ _bxg1

Love me some retro-futurism

⬐ samgranieri

I remember watching this in grade school. Ah, memories

⬐ brandonmenc

Music by Peter Gabriel.

⬐ delish

As with everything, there's an emacs extension for it : ).

;;; youwill.el --- generate meaningless marketing hype

http://www.splode.com/~friedman/software/emacs-lisp/src/youw...

I got:

have you ever been forced by your TV to eat peaches? or been transported to an alternate reality where you lost your piglet? you will. and the company that will bring it to you: AT&T

⬐ tosh

This is hilarious. Thx!

We've had the prospect of video chat for decades. 2001 A Space Odyssey showed us that it would be the de facto way to talk to our families. Tom Selleck promised us in the early 1990s (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZb0avfQme8) that AT&T would bring it to us. And when we finally got it, most people said, "meh". Almost all chat platforms have some sort of video integration, and for the most part, its acceptance is lukewarm. Perhaps it's because it doesn't work amazingly well? Perhaps its because people really don't want to have to get dressed to have a conversation? Perhaps I'm just not in the right crowd?

⬐ flanbiscuit

A lot of people I know, so this is very anecdotal, don't even like to talk on the phone anymore, they prefer texting. I do most of my video chatting at work with some of our remote co-workers and that's mainly because we want to screen share. If it wasn't for the screen share (we use google hangouts) then we'd probably never video chat.

My theory about why people would rather just text than voice/video chat is that it consumes to much effort and commitment of time. People want to be able to quickly switch contexts and apps. If you're talking or video chatting then you have to be more focused and your phone is occupied during that process.

Also I think there's just an abundance of ways to communicate with anyone around the world now that video chat is not as special as it once seemed. I tried counting how many ways I could be contacts and my list was long.

⬐ toomanybeersies

As another anecdote, a lot of people I know prefer to call than text. It's a good way to get an immediate response and plan things quickly, rather than trying to play scheduling tennis over text.

⬐ vbezhenar

I'm avoiding even voice calls, I just don't like it, e-mail is best communication platform for me, followed by chats. I would only accept video calls from my relatives. It's a very niche thing.

⬐ Thlom

But management likes it, so there's still a lot of money in video conferencing.

⬐ Theodores

Video was also the feature that was going to justify the 3G spectrum auction prices. In the UK many billions were paid by the telcos and part of the marketing promise at the time was the then 'obvious' application of video calling. We would all be chatting by video on our flip phones, not sending txt messages. txt messages were an accidental phenomenon as I understand it, something squeezed into the chatter needed for the phone to stay in touch with base station.

Cameras in phones by Nokia et al. from 2005 are with this in mind, front facing, VGA video that is handled at the phone level as a video call:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N70

There is no 'app' that puts the video in a http stream somehow, this was baked in functionality, now abandoned by telcos.

Yet there is the selfie phenomenon, again something that few imagined to be the thing it is. Cameras used to point outwards, now they point at the owner. I would not be surprised if cheap phones only come with selfie cameras soon, much like how laptops only come with 'selfie cameras'.

A large tablet for just doing Facebook and Facebook video does not sound portable enough for what it does, 'phablets' are better on the commute, why carry another device? Sounds to me as if Facebook are trying to hard on all the failed VR apps.

⬐ pazimzadeh

Obligatory link to David Foster Wallace's prediction of this http://kottke.org/10/06/david-foster-wallace-on-iphone-4s-fa...

⬐ DarkTree

There's also Bell Lab's "picturephone" from the 19060s(!), that despite market research showing would be a hit, ended up being quite a market failure.

http://ethw.org/Picturephone

⬐ digi_owl

One thing was pricing (back when UMTS was all about selling video calls, the operators slapped on an higher charge), another was that until recently the handheld screens (never mind cameras) were very low resolution.

These days however it is all data.

⬐ kalleboo

When Three launched in Sweden, they made video calls free for an introductory period. Adoption was still abysmal.

⬐ toomanybeersies

Most people I know that don't live near their parents use video chat to talk to them.

My parents are luddites, so I still ring their landline.

⬐ xphilter

FaceTime seems to be way more popular than most realize. Anecdotally, my children use it daily to talk with grandparents and cousins and I see people on public transportation using it in place of telephone calls (makes more sense there because they're not driving). And, I use it when traveling to talk to my family.

The issue going forward is the lack of standardization across protocols. Despite Apple's mention in the keynote when FaceTime was announced that it would be open, FaceTime is iOS/Mac only for now. And, I don't see Facebook's playing nice with Amazon's, etc.

⬐ saagarjha

> Apple's mention in the keynote when FaceTime was announced that it would be open

They were planning to do so, but got caught up in a lawsuit with VirnetX.

⬐ am1988

I'm so glad we have patents to help further innovation.

⬐ macNchz

> makes more sense there because they're not driving

I've driven next to people on the highway who were on a Facetime call with their phone resting on the dash in front of the speedometer, so that is a thing that people do, unfortunately.

⬐ digi_owl

Wonder how much that has to do with vertical integration.

If you already have a apple device you are already registered and anyone else on your contacts list that also have a apple device is also ready to receive your call.

⬐ azinman2

It also works super well.

⬐ vermontdevil

It's iOS/Mac only because it has to go through Apple server. This is because of this lawsuit:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20236114

⬐ opportune

Interestingly, it seems the company they lost to is effectively a publicly traded patent troll

⬐ smnrchrds

And it has a market cap of just over 200 million dollars [1]. Makes me wonder why Apple wouldn't simply buy the company. They can more than easily afford it.

[1] https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/VHC

⬐ eutropia

If I were feeling vindictive I wouldn't want to reward a patent troll by making them multimillionaires. I'd rather sue them out of existence...

Link to the AT&T tv commercial from in the article: https://youtu.be/TZb0avfQme8?t=30

Interesting historic piece. the TV movie is called Hyperland (1990): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0188677/

Similar videos with good visions can be found from AT&T (the big old one), Microsoft and Apple - all from ca 1990.

Apple Knowledge Navigator TV advertisement (1987): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umJsITGzXd0

AT&T 1993 "You will" TV advertisement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZb0avfQme8 , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Will

"Information at your Fingertips" Microsoft presentation at COMDEX 1995: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XxeY-OchwY

"Microsoft Network" (MSN 1.0) TV advertisement (1995): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGYcNcFhctc&t=17m25s

⬐ PaulHoule

Seems like this is right for a parody:

Every had your credit cards stolen by a hacker from Siberia?

Ever pay a phone bill that was bigger than a car payment?

Ever talk on a phone on which you couldn't hear what people were saying?

YOU WILL.

⬐ ascorbic

It's funny how they manage to get so much so right, but for some reason think we'll still be using faxes and phonebooths. It's not like mobile phones didn't exist then. More understandable is not predicting that it wouldn't be them delivering it.

⬐ DerekL

We still do use faxes and pay phones, but now they are less popular than email, mobile phones, etc.

⬐ api

"You will," but we won't build it because we can't bring ourselves to cannibalize existing long distance and toll based business models nor allow permission-free innovation within our organization. -AT&T

Bill Gates's vision was about a "wallet PC", "information highway" and software based "personal agents". You can think of smartphone with BitCoin wallet, 3G web connection, Siri meets Watson.

He hoped Microsoft's "pen-based computing" (later Pocket-PC/WinCE) would get traction. Microsoft Bob (from Gates wife) and Office agents (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Assistant) flopped. The Microsoft Network 1.0 (short MSN 1.0) integrated in Windows 95 (was a serious Web competitor based on Win32 controls and Explorer as browser instead of HTML and Mosaic/Internet Explorer 1) flopped. The second edition of the book features the Internet/web instead of "information highway".

Bill Gates vision can be seen in the Comdex 1995 video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XxeY-OchwY&feature=youtu.be... (shows the "wallet PC")

General Magic was definitely a competitor. AT&T was on the General Magic bandwagon, see their TV ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZb0avfQme8 (triva: Jenna Elfman of Dharma & Greg in her first role in 0:48)

AT&T forecast ads from 1993: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZb0avfQme8

Apple, 1990: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlfTDlgAl_A

"You Will"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZb0avfQme8

The company that brought it to me wasn't AT&T.

⬐ jgrahamc

But does anyone have the spoof version of this made internally at Microsoft? They paid Tom Selleck to do the voice over. One scene depicted a woman walking in the surf along a beach. She's wearing a white dress and a big straw hat. Selleck says: "Have you ever received a fax in your hat?" Cut to fax appearing from slot in her hat. Then he says "You will".

There were others IIRC and I saw them in Redmond in the mid 1990s.

⬐ tmsh

There's a hat for that.

⬐ None

None

⬐ sophacles

I can't decide what gave me more amusement: the stuff they got right (ipass/ezpass idea, video conferencing and skype like stuff), the stuff they got wrong (phone booths!, tablet pcs being more than a gimick) or the stuff they claimed they would do, which they now actively oppose (skype like stuff).

I remember these commercials fondly, as they were a big push to get me into programming when I was a boy -- such cool and endless possibilities. Of course back then they were so futuristic, and now they look rather quaint -- who would want devices that are so big and bulky?

⬐ seldo

To be fair, I think there's a million or so iPad customers who would dispute that tablet computing is merely a "gimmick" (though even as an iPad owner, I'll admit that's not a done deal yet).

I probably won't be using mine to send faxes though :-)

⬐ biotech

That's the interesting thing about this type of predicting: they usually fail to account for certain technologies being pushed out by others. You probably won't send a fax because faxing is nearly obsolete. Everyone uses email instead. And you probably will use your tablet to send email.

It's the same as with the phone booth. The same technology that lets the guy send a fax from the beach allows him to make calls from almost anywhere, (even video conferencing if you have an Evo or similar phone) pushing the phone booth out of common use. And, when everyone has a computer with an internet connection, why would someone have to go to a cash machine to buy concert tickets?

It is almost impossible to get everything right, and if there are certain key technologies that aren't predicted correctly (like desktop computers, high-bandwidth cell signals, internet everywhere, etc), then it has a cascading effect of invalidating many of the other predictions.

⬐ riffer

if there are certain key technologies that aren't predicted correctly (like desktop computers, high-bandwidth cell signals, internet everywhere, etc), then it has a cascading effect of invalidating many of the other predictions

Which is why it's better to work on something truly innovative and disruptive that has the potential to become one of those key technologies. Elon Musk type stuff, rather than think X for Y to get buzzword soup and series A projects.

⬐ extension

Yeah but the more realistic ad wouldn't be quite as inspiring:

Imagine if you could buy concert tickets... in your underwear!

Imagine if you could attend a meeting... in your underwear!

Imagine if you could go to school... in your underwear!

You will, thanks to AT&T!

⬐ jamesbritt

Ah, but replace "in your underwear!" with "naked!" and the fun begins.

⬐ DerekL

Or "on the toilet".

⬐ ghurlman

So the email I sent from an iPad that had an attachment that was faxed to someone... that doesn't count? ;)

⬐ amalcon

or the stuff they claimed they would do, which they now actively oppose (skype like stuff).

Remember that AT&T isn't actually the same company it was in the 90's. Depending on whether you're talking about hard lines or mobile, it's either SBC or Cingular.

⬐ jballanc

Both of which were AT&T before they weren't...before they were again. What goes around...

⬐ pohl

...and the company that will bring it to you, will be counting the minutes until the exclusivity contract with AT&T expires.

⬐ houseabsolute

You really think Apple made a 3+ year exclusivity contract with AT&T? Even in view of the explosive possibilities of the device? Hmm, it's possible, but it doesn't seem likely. It's probable that they are continuing to choose to do business with them for some reason or another.

⬐ megablast

Because of the controls that were in place with the carriers at the time, and the fact that Apple didn't want to operate under those controls, it was not easy for Apple to find a company to work with. On top of that, there was no guarantee the iPhone would be a success, and it also required significant change to the software operating the cell towers, for things like visual voicemail. And also, Apple was asking for a lot of money.

ATT was supposedly not Apples first choice, but it was the one that accepted the conditions Apple bought to the table.

⬐ portman

Apple did sign a five-year exclusive with AT&T. Sources:

http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/10/confirmed-apple-and-atand...

http://stadium.weblogsinc.com/engadget/files/Apple_iPhone_Ex...

http://stadium.weblogsinc.com/engadget/files/Apple_iPhone_Ex...

⬐ houseabsolute

Shows what I know. :P Why is everyone speculating that they might come out with a Verizon phone then? Surely this is basically a broken leg on the possibility of that happening until 2012?

⬐ portman

There was speculation that because the original agreement did not include the iPad, Apple was under no obligation to give AT&T exclusivity on the iPad, and that they renegotiated the contract when the iPad was released. Such a renegotiation could have included an earlier end to exclusivity.

It will take another court case to confirm if that is true, since neither party comments on the terms of their agreement.

⬐ houseabsolute

Interesting . . . that other court case is entirely possible too with people complaining about the unlimited bandwidth bait and switch.

⬐ pyre

Though Apple may be one of the companies that will 'bring it to you,' they will not be bringing all of those things to us, even if the iPad/iPhone is the hardware that some of those things are/will be running on.

⬐ jcl

One ad in particular that later struck me as prescient was the ~1999 Quest ad of the guy asking what movies a hotel had: "All rooms have every movie in every language, anytime, day or night."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ9qcp6Lcno

⬐ chaosmachine

At the end, the guy says "How is that possible?" and I'm thinking... "The Pirate Bay".

⬐ megaman821

At first I took that in as a funny statement. Then after a few seconds in just became sad. Damn media companies suck. Where would they be without Napster and The Pirate Bay showing them where the pent up demand is/will be?

⬐ nitrogen

Imagine a video library with every movie you've ever watched cataloged, searchable, and instantly viewable on any device you own. Then imagine that video library being smashed to bits by DRM and the DMCA.

⬐ sliverstorm

> ... Where would they be...

Squeezing every last cent out of the market

No, seriously. They don't care about fulfilling consumer demand; whatever they predict will be most profitable is naturally what they will do. They are a company after all.

⬐ tortilla

I think in 300 years, people will still know what a fax is because it'll never go away.

⬐ kierank

Fax will be remembered like the telegraph. Telex won't be however, except when people are still messing with their UNIX terminals.

⬐ llimllib

My favorite piece of fax humor: http://achewood.com/index.php?date=11222006

⬐ rubinelli

Oh, I see it already: "No, grandpa, the paper actually disappears inside the machine and appears on the other side."

⬐ InclinedPlane

http://www.thehighdefinite.com/2010/02/the-evolution-of-the-...

⬐ johns

They should remake these. Imagine we didn't all loathe them for a second, what would you include if you made them today?

⬐ bluedanieru

I'm a lot more cynical now than I was in the early nineties, so my ideas would focus mainly on forced biological modifications imposed on us by the ruling class. (Think stalkers at the end of Half-Life 2, except replace the Combine with Halliburton.)

"Have you ever been stripped of agency by intrusive mind-control and body-modification technology and sacrificed any biological dignity you had to serve at the behest of an omnipotent AI god for the benefit of a handful of plutocrats? You will..."

⬐ ghshephard

The whole 'the future is now' hit me last week when we got to the theater, saw the 5-10 minute line we didn't want to wait in, and purchased the tickets from my iPhone instead. What hit me was that a) I didn't event really break mu pace as I was walking into the theater, and b) it didn't even seem that exceptional a thing to do.

⬐ baskinghobo

And we have 3d hologram without glasses with 3DS and OLED TV's as thin as a paper and 1gbp/s Google broadband letting you download Blu-Ray movies in less than 10 seconds yet we live with them today like it's nothing.

⬐ Charuru

Whoa, none of those things are commercially available yet.

Looks like the future is in 2-3 years? :D

⬐ TomLimoncelli

I worked at AT&T / Bell Labs when those commercials were flooding every show on TV.

Bell Labs was upset because AT&T made those commercials without consulting us. A PR company thought up all the ideas. We had zero projects internally working on such products.

That's why those products came from EZPass, not AT&T; Skype, not AT&T; Apple iPad, not AT&T.

Even thought it wasn't AT&T that brought those things to market, nearly all of them do exist today. It is a beautiful thing. I feel lucky to be living in what my co-workers call 'The freakin Buck-Rogers-would-be-jealous future'.

Tom

PS. Oh, and the one where they guy has a Dick Tracy-style video-phone on his watch? Well, soon after AT&T bought McCaw Cellular my friends in the cellular phone communications research area were asked to work up an explanation of why such a thing can't exist and isn't likely to exist any time soon. It turns out that after AT&T bought McCaw they (McCaw) was very unhappy to learn that the wrist-phone was a figment of a marketing person's imagination and not something actually being developed at Bell Labs. Ooops. I hope they didn't let themselves get bought by AT&T just because they thought we had that product in the wings.

⬐ elblanco

> That's why those products came from EZPass, not AT&T; Skype, not AT&T; Apple iPad, not AT&T.

Fascinating explanation. I never understood the relationships between most of the ideas in those commercials and AT&T. It's actually awesome to see these commercials again and realize how many far fetched ideas have come true. I remember thinking that most of the things in the commercial were nonsense!

Looking back it's more interesting how little AT&T has had to do with any of those things. I wonder how influential these commercials were on the engineers today who actually built those things (EZPass, Skype, iPad) or are the presence of these technologies an inevitable extension of the direction technology was going to go anyway?

⬐ waivej

I was at a distance learning software company that had AT&T as a client. I always wondered if there was a connection to the commercial. We were connecting classrooms with video and shared multimedia content. I even made a "Jazz" course but I think it was later.

Around 1998, "The Internet" changed our market so we rushed to rewrite the software to work on it. Up until that point, it wasn't really on our radar.

⬐ btl

Tom: I was also at the Labs (Research @ MH) when these spots were made.

We were consulted by the PR people before they were shot.

As far as I know, most "predictions" in those spots were based on real technologies and demos that were running in the Labs at that time. My dept was directly responsible for two of them.

I do not recall the Dick Tracy watch but the projects behind the books on-line, video-on-demand and "EZ Pass" were being done at HO and MH.

Others were products or concepts in the pipeline (e.g. fax from a tablet -- remember GO/EO?, tickets from a cash machine -- NCR ATMs).

Some things shown were straight line extrapolations from core technologies that had existed in the Labs for some time (e.g. driving across the country without needing a map, video telephony, packet voice/video, etc.)

Much of the really interesting work from Research at the Labs never made it into real products from AT&T due to various political, business and regulatory issues.

Many things later got "reinvented" by other firms that were better able to capitalize on the innovation.

It has been said that any company that can afford an organization like Bell Labs Research will ignore it.

That was definitely the case for Bell Labs, Xerox PARC, etc.

Even more predictions on the future...

ATT's You Will http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZb0avfQme8

MCI's No More There http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJhRPBJPoO0

⬐ ShabbyDoo

A couple of themes emerge:

1. The stuff they predicted using dedicated technologies (video pay phones, etc.) ended up being built on top of general purpose platforms (laptops). The fax-from-the-beach thing is another example, although one would just send an email today.

2. AT&T tended to predict evolutionary change when more profound change actually happened. Payphones, faxes, etc. Perhaps marketers realized that they had to attach the wow factor to something concrete that everybody already understood.

What they didn't predict (or at least tell us about) was that voice would become just another service on a general network (Skype). I guess this has only partially happened, but it's clearly the endgame.