The world of tomorrow has always tempted the imaginations of today. From personal jet-packs to flying cars, new technology and home appliances have long been promised and predicted by speculators, scientists and others at the bleeding edge of innovation. All too often, however, our hopes and dreams for these products wind up crushed, with production proving impossible, unsafe or downright ludicrous. Below, we’ll explore nine of the most far-flung products that never came to be.
(source)
The “Boy’s Flying Machine” was sketched out in the December 1900 edition of the Minneapolis Journal, alongside the caption, “A look to the future: The boy of the present has a glimpse of the twentieth century boy.” The full sketch shows a boy on a bicycle looking up as the future boy soars by on his personal flying device. With so much focus on such devices (including the oft-predicted, though not yet realized, flying car) it seems that the magazine editors truly believed that a flying machine would one day overtake the standard bicycle as the transportation of choice for young boys everywhere.
(source)
A few years ago, the National Library of France released a series of images published in 1910 that predicted what the world might look like in the year 2000. Among the many gems conceptualized were car shoes: a motorized pair of shoes that would make the effort of walking a thing of the past. From the way they are illustrated, it appears that the artist imagined that familiar roller skates would be iterated upon and given independent power, so that the skater would receive a consistent and effortless boost while traveling. However, much to modern skaters’ disappointment, these shoe cars were never invented, perhaps due to the risk of injury and proper training required for use.
(source)
An August 1923 edition of the Rock Valley Bee, an Indiana newspaper, featured a small yet bold piece that told of scientific hopes to shrink entire meals down to a pill. PaleoFuture, a blog that seeks to catalog futuristic predictions that never came to fruition, quotes Hugh S. Cummings, the former surgeon general of public health service, as saying, “A good hearty meal, all in one pill that can be carried in a vest pocket, is the dream of scientists of today.” The article continues to explain that, “the farthest scientists have progressed, according to Mr. Cummings, is to remove all the water from foods and condense them some 70 percent.” Yet, despite Mr. Cummings’ hopes, full meals in pill form never came to be, and we can only surmise that this is due to both feasibility and desirability issues for the consumer.
(source)
The Radio Newspaper Receiver appeared in the May 1939 issue of Popular Science and was conceived as a way to transmit full newspapers over radio waves. The article (re-posted on ModernMechanix) explains that the receiver would print the news on one continuous spool of paper while the user sat and comfortably read the daily headlines. The receiver-printer unit would not seek to replace a buyer’s existing radio. Instead, the unit would attach firmly to the top of the existing radio and use its signal to begin receiving and delivering the paper.
Appearing in a 1930′s edition of the Syracuse Herald, the ice box of the future is health-inspired product that never came to be. The article (which was re-posted by PaleoFuture) predicted that “the ice box of the future will tell the housewife if meat she buys is fresh or old.” This technological feat was supposed to be accomplished through the freezer’s ability to create an atmosphere of dry ice or solid carbon dioxide. The theory was that these frigid substances would allow fresh meat to retain its red color and cause old or spoiled meat to instantly turn brown. With expiration dates on most of today’s products, this freezer is largely unnecessary, though still pretty nifty if it had come to be.
(source)
Many of us find it hard to decide what color to settle on when buying a brand new car. The 1958 edition of the famous Closer Than We Think publication predicted an end to this dilemma with electric color changing cars. The paper claimed that the automotive industry was looking into “a new kind of specially sensitive car body finish whose color can be changed at will.” Instead of the risky body shop paint job, an electromagnetic gun could be aimed at the car, changing its color within seconds to whatever new hue the owner desired. It would have been the perfect thing for the indecisive car shoppers, but never quite made it to market.
(source)
Though recent years have seen a decline in the quality of fashionable garments, the industry hasn’t quite reached the prediction made in the October 25, 1959 edition of the Chicago Tribune. Rather than going through the effort of washing your clothes, the article explained that “In the future… you’ll simply throw the old clothes away – and maybe kindle a campfire with them.” Such disposable fashion would be made possible by constructing clothing out of cheap, processed paper intended to be thrown away after several wears. According to the publication, the U.S Army’s Quartermaster Corps were researching use of such material for cheap uniforms, leading the author to the assumption that this trend would one day spread to consumer fashion. Talk about buying something for a single occasion!
(source)
A 1960 edition of Closer Than We Think gave hope for the often romanticized wristwatch television. And although there have been a couple of television wristwatches actually sold to consumers, none of them have ever truly caught on, possibly due to prohibitively high prices and problems with usability. Even the famous TV watch in James Bond’s Octopussy never received telecasts from the moon, as the original article predicted the watch of the future would surely do. And, with today’s smartphone technology bringing mobile video to our fingertips, it seems that the “Wristwatch TV” has fallen to the wayside as an invention that simply missed its prime.
(source)
The “Homework Machine” was purported as a way to do the impossible: make homework fun. Featured in the 1981 book, School, Work and Play (World of Tomorrow), this wondrous machine featured computer technology that would make games out of homework problems and would be able to accommodate several students of varying grade levels at one time. Much to the dismay of the era’s schoolchildren, this piece of home technology never fully came to be and today’s computers, though smaller and more individual, arguably accomplish the same thing.
Tell us what you're thinking...
and if you want a pic to show with your comment, then get gravatar!
Milo searches the shelves of your local stores in real-time to find the best price and availability for the products you want to have – right now.
» Find Products Near You
Duug for Throw away clothing! It is so hot in Manhattan it sounds the Best!
The meal in a pill reminds me of the Ren and Stimpy show when Ren ate the Meat pill during camping and a full size moose was re-hydrated in Ren’s stomach!
The TV watch was made a reality in 1982.
http://www.tvhistory.tv/Smallest%20TV.htm
Though it couldn’t receive signals from the moon, it could watch TV. (I had one of these a couple years ago…quite neat.)
If we pay more attention on how innovations are made, we could observe that they are made to systems that are new and there are considered similarities and differences with other systems.
http://knowengineering.wordpress.com/2010/06/07/solving-problems-or-creating-solutions/
Radio Newspaper Receiver – This device doesn’t really fit in a list of things that never were, seeing as how I am using one right now to view this article.
You can take the Car Shoes off the list http://www.etotheipiplusone.net/?p=804
Oh , these too http://www.etotheipiplusone.net/?p=804
And i almost forgot about these as well.
http://www.etotheipiplusone.net/?p=804 Even more usefull as you can walk and use them.
We have that! It’s called Walmart!
Actually, that freeze box does exist in the form of a refrigerator that also lets you know what you need to buy!
HAHAHA love it
throw away clothing: is HEMP clothing, clothing made out of hemp is 100% bio degradable and prior to the "eradication" of this wonder plant (food, fuel/jet fuel, clothes, 10x stronger wood,metal like cars that are stronger than metal, and more) and its abilities…you COULD have disposable clothing.
dips.
The Radio Newspaper Receiver is basically just a fax machine
If we pay more attention on how innovations are made, we could observe that they are made to systems that are new and there are considered similarities and differences with other systems.
http://knowengineering.wordpress.com/2010/06/07/so …
That first picture has given us a new meme………………PEDO-MOON!!!
Yeah Pedo-Moon wants your high flying, oversized bowtie wearing children.
Powdered Toast Man.
Car shoes:
http://www.random-good-stuff.com/2007/03/15/motori …
Idk i would say the homework machine exists in the form of wikipedia.
Or a Kindle/Nook.
but but… but… marijuana evil! alcohol good!
Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, im freezin my ass off! Damn you climate change!!!
Wasn’t someone coming out with paper "one use" clothing? The Japanese?
Being a gadget freak, I had one also
I love that in 1960, someone thought that there would be levitating cars in 1964.
Dude radio newspaper was invented, it’s called a fax machine, basically the exact concept receiving long documents from a machine in your home from anywhere.
yeah.. id say more like a kindle since the content is coming over the air as opposed to through a landline
See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleprinter
Is the article just sarcasm? The only thing that didn’t become, in some form, a reality is the meal-pill.
Some of these have come and gone. A couple more, we’re there!
The “Radio Newspaper” sounds like a FAX machine, except that most
FAX machines used dial-up lines. It WAS possible to use radio. Especially to remote areas!
Throw-away clothing?
We’re there! Most clothing today is never mended or repaired. it is used until it is full of holes, or discolored and thrown out.
Color-changing cars?
My car can look beige or gold, depending on how the light hits it!
Wristwatch TV?- Cell phone video does more than TV!
Some of these things ended up being implemented differently than these writers thought.
Wouldn’t say most of those never were!
Some of these have come and gone. A couple more, we’re there!
The "Radio Newspaper" sounds like a FAX machine, except that most
FAX machines used dial-up lines. It WAS possible to use radio. Especially to remote areas!
Throw-away clothing?
We’re there! Most clothing today is never mended or repaired. it is used until it is full of holes, or discolored and thrown out.
Color-changing cars?
My car can look beige or gold, depending on how the light hits it!
Wristwatch TV?- Cell phone video does more than TV!
Homework Machine?
What is Google?
Some of these things ended up being implemented differently than these writers thought.
Thanks for your comments, everyone! As we noted in the post, many of these things have been invented in a different form (i.e. Google for homework, smartphones instead of TV wristwatches). What struck us as most interesting though is the way these products were originally envisioned, which, for most of them, has never come to fruition.
If you have any suggestions for upcoming posts/infographics, please submit them and we’ll see what we can do!
Ju Jitsu calling dick Tracy
60s was a kewl time.. I was like 3..
Earl Schieb! Any car! Any color! Only $299!
There actually was paper clothing. I remember having a white paper jacket as a child one summer. Must have been in the late 70s. I wore it more than once, but it was thrown away then.
Many of the items “of the future” don’t come true because other advances surpassed them or made them uneccessary. Some of these did come true, but nobody cared.
The space suits that are currently available do pretty much what they need to do, and they don’t look like little dinosaurs running around;
The icebox of the future missed the mark because with proper refrigeration, that has been available since the late 1940′s, there really isn’t any need to test to see if the meat is bad.
I am not sure if the Boys Flying Machine was actually serious — but we do have hang gliders and ultralight airplanes.
The Radio Newspaper Receiver was essentially replaced with the television, and now by the Internet and the Kindle.
Throw-away clothing has existed since the 1960′s; it bombed in the consumer market, but industry uses a butt load of Tyvek disposable clothing.