Today’s new communications technologies gush uncertainty. Cable and phone companies are forming alliances to compete with each other. Everyone aims to steal everyone else’s business. And strive to rewrite communications laws to their advantage. No one really knows what customers want. Some new technologies will predictably have unpredictable uses. We won’t know what they are until the systems are built; but the systems may not get built until we have a better idea of their uses. We are on the threshold of something; we just don’t know what or when.
Predictor: Samuelson, Robert
Prediction, in context:In a 1993 essay for Newsweek magazine, columnist Robert Samuelson writes: ”All new technologies trigger turmoil. True, they foster change. But they also retard it, because they spawn new technical, economic and legal problems. When these are few, the technology may catch on quickly. In 1945, almost no one had a TV; by 1960, about 86 percent of [American] households did. But, typically, the problems are greater and the spread is slower. This is why new technologies usually make themselves felt only gradually. Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876. By 1940, only 40 percent of households had one. Today’s new communications technologies gush uncertainty. Cable and phone companies are forming alliances to compete with each other. Everyone aims to steal everyone else’s business. And strive to rewrite communications laws to their advantage. No one really knows what customers want. Some new technologies will predictably have unpredictable uses. We won’t know what they are until the systems are built; but the systems may not get built until we have a better idea of their uses. We are on the threshold of something; we just don’t know what or when.”
Biography:Robert Samuelson , a regular columnist for Newsweek, also wrote for the Washington Post in the 1990s. (Author/Editor/Journalist.)
Date of prediction: December 1, 1993
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: Newsweek
Title, headline, chapter name: Lost On The Information Superhighway: It’s a Lot of Hoopla. No One Yet Knows Where It’s Going
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://web16.epnet.com/citation.asp?tb=1&_ug=dbs+0+ln+en%2Dus+sid+1CE74732%2DC742%2D4AD3%2DB343%2D16CC9B067F55%40Sessionmgr4%2DSessionmgr3+CDB2&_us=bs+Samuelson++Information++Superhighway+cst+0%3B1+ds+Samuelson++Information++Superhighway+dstb+KS+hd+0+hs+%2D1+or+Date+pr+255+ri+KAAACBYB00269722+sl+0+sm+KS+so+all+ss+SO+11F6&fn=1&rn=1
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Stevens, Shawn