Mobile phones!
Predicted in 1963!
In April 1963, the Mansfield News Journal published a curious article with a headline that now feels prophetic:
“You’ll Be Able To Carry Phone In Pocket In Future.”
The article featured Mrs. Jean Conrad of Mansfield Telephone Co., holding up a prototype of a wireless, pocket-sized telephone.
At the time, it was described as “far in the future,” a laboratory concept that allowed the user to make and receive calls from anywhere.
Alongside it were other futuristic ideas: a kitchen loud-speaking phone, a visual image phone (complete with a miniature TV camera), and even a conversation tape recorder.
Fast forward to today, and we carry devices that do all of that—and much more—in our pockets.
Smartphones have not only fulfilled this vision but exceeded it beyond imagination.
What’s remarkable is not just the accuracy of the prediction, but the boldness of imagining such a leap in 1963—when rotary phones and landlines ruled the day.
Here is an image of that article published in 1963
(Picture source : Pinterest)
Just in case the text in this news article is not readable, I am zooming into it.
Even during the nineteen nineties I would have dismissed this as fantasy even though pagers existed those days.
When mobile phones became available in India during the end of the last century I was wary of it.
I avoided it. It was costly and mobile phone calls used to cost Rs 17 per minute when first introduced. We had to pay for incoming calls too.
I postponed buying it till 2004 when I launched my startup. As an entrepreneur, it become necessary for me to have one.