De Toekomst Volgens Pacific Telephone in 1970

De toekomst voorspellen is altijd moeilijk maar de volgende Engelse press release van het Amerikaanse Pacific Telephone uit 1970 die ik tegenkwam en voor het gemak heb overgetypt, geeft een behoorlijk juist beeld van de tijd waar we nu in leven. Alleen weet ik niet of we er zo blij mee moeten zijn.

"Communications in the year 2000 will be able to do so many things for people that the telephone - or whatever it may be called then - might well change the way we live and work.

Future communications may make it unnecessary for people to cluster together in crowded urban areas, or even to go to work in an office. Men might get information they need through telephone access to centralized computers, and hold conferences with others throughout the country, or the world, by using Picturephone service - a visual TV-type screen that is part of the phone.

Housewives may do their shopping from their living rooms by calling the supermarket with their Picturephone, examining the groceries, then pressing buttons on their phones to place orders with the store's computer.

Research for education, work and leisure could also be conducted from home. The man of the year 2000 could call the dial-a-book library in his suburban center, or, if he prefers, in Europe, and an image of the material he wants would be projected on his Picturephone screen. Or he could "visit" an art gallery by phone the same way.

Magazines, newspapers and other printed material could be delivered to homes over telephone lines.

The telephone instruments of the year 2000 will be smaller, lighter, and easier to use. Speakers may be hidden in the furniture. The Picturephone screen might be set in the wall and would, of course, be in color. Portable pocket phones, no bigger than a book of matches, would enable people to call or be called no matter where they were. And mobile phones in cars and pleasure boats would be commonplace.

We don't know for sure if all these events will materialize just this way. But the technical ability to do these things is here now.

The recent Bell System developments of Touch-Tone calling, electronic switching, and Picturephone service - all in limited use today - provide wide possibilities for futuristic communication services.

The push buttons on a Touch-Tone telephone can be used to send electronic messages to computers after a call has been connected. Touch-Tone will be generally available within the next decade.

Electronic switching, which we plan to install throughout the country by the year 2000 at a cost of $12 billion, can be programmed to provide any number of individual services because it has the prodigious "memory," logic and speed of a computer.

Right now, the technology is there for amazing services. Housewives can turn appliances on or off with a phone call; incoming calls can be automatically transferred to a friend's house; bills can be paid by tapping buttons on a phone; frequently-called numbers can be dialed with just two or three digits.

The fact is that the communications industry today can transmit any form of information and deliver it by sound, TV-type visual images, permanent paper facsimile reproductions, or coded bits of data for computers. The exact means to be used in the future is limited only by what is economically feasible, and by what people want.

The society of the year 2000 will shape the form of communications, and communications will help shape the form of our society."