Basically computers are going to become our televisions. They will be really big, cheap screens as flat as pancakes, and they’re going to [have] fun digital imagery, plus interlaced NTSC, plus PAL, plus SECAM, Cinerama, Super Panavision, Cinemascope plus video record and playback, all at the same time, probably in a series of windows. It won’t be fancy interactive television with a lot of button-pushing. It’s gonna be the “I Love Lucy Show” and “Dallas” but grabbed faster, and if you pay enough you’ll be allowed to fast-forward through the really unbearably stupid parts.
Predictor: Sterling, Bruce
Prediction, in context:A 1995 e-mail interview with science fiction writer and cyberspace commentator Bruce Sterling for Telecommunications International included the following exchange: TI: “What would be your thumbnail sketch of the year 2020 in the communications industry? An era when communications will be very cheap – but not accessible, perhaps?” Sterling: “Basically computers are going to become our televisions. They will be really big, cheap screens as flat as pancakes, and they’re going to [have] fun digital imagery, plus interlaced NTSC, plus PAL, plus SECAM, Cinerama, Super Panavision, Cinemascope plus video record and playback, all at the same time, probably in a series of windows. It won’t be fancy interactive television with a lot of button-pushing. It’s gonna be the ‘I Love Lucy Show’ and ‘Dallas’ but grabbed faster, and if you pay enough you’ll be allowed to fast-forward through the really unbearably stupid parts. [He also adds that the phone companies that survive will be cellular phone companies with flat rates.]”
Biography:Bruce Sterling, a writer, consultant and science fiction enthusiast, wrote or co-wrote “Schismatrix,” “The Hacker Crackdown” and “The Difference Engine” and edited “Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology.” In the 1990s, he wrote tech articles for Fortune, Harper’s, Details, Whole Earth Review and Wired, where he was a contributing writer from its founding. He published the nonfiction book “Tomorrow Now: Envisioning the Next Fifty Years” in 2002. (Author/Editor/Journalist.)
Date of prediction: September 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Internet Appliances
Name of publication: Telecommunications International
Title, headline, chapter name: Dropping Anchor in Cyberspace
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Vol. 29, Issue 9, Page 115 ISSN: 00402494
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Uhlfelder, Evelyn C.