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Gibson’s future just may not have happened yet. In the ‘50s our sci-fi showed rockets landing in the same manner (in reverse) that they launched, and it’s slowl

Gibson’s future just may not have happened yet. In the ‘50s our sci-fi showed rockets landing in the same manner (in reverse) that they launched, and it’s slowly becoming a thing now. Some things, like people living in space or AI, were always obvious and easy to predict. Some things were strangely overlooked (cellphones).

skmurphy 8y ago
That's certainly possible. It's interesting that the developers of the Motorola Star Tac phone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_StarTAC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_StarTAC said that they were inspired by the Star Trek communicators so science fiction had definitely predicted cell phones. There is an entire site devoted to tracing real inventions to their science fiction counterparts: http://www.technovelgy.com/ http://www.technovelgy.com/
- bpiche 8y ago
  Sometimes these science fiction counterparts are called 'diagetic prototypes' or 'design fictions'. Has been a favorite topic of Mr Bruce Sterling's for a while now https://www.wired.com/2011/02/design-fiction-diegetic-prototypes/ https://www.wired.com/2011/02/design-fiction-diegetic-protot...
mattkevan 8y ago
“The future is already here - it’s just not evenly distributed” - William Gibson