WEBVTT - What happened to the technology of the future? 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:02.880 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. 0:00:03.240 --> 0:00:08.959 It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With 0:00:09.039 --> 0:00:18.320 tech stuff from how stuff Works dot com Yellow Welcome 0:00:18.360 --> 0:00:20.360 to the podcast. My name is Chris Pelett. I'm an 0:00:20.440 --> 0:00:22.959 editor here and How Stuff Works. Sitting next to me, 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:27.440 as usual is senior writer Jonathan Strickland. Hello, from the 0:00:27.440 --> 0:00:32.360 World of Tomorrow. Oh no, you know, actually it reminds 0:00:32.400 --> 0:00:34.519 me of a line from Spaceballs. Even in the future 0:00:34.560 --> 0:00:37.720 nothing works, right, So we're gonna talk about what the 0:00:37.720 --> 0:00:42.559 hell happened to the future? Yeah, because you know, we 0:00:42.560 --> 0:00:44.800 were talking about fun ideas for podcasts, and we decided 0:00:44.840 --> 0:00:47.320 we want to do something really fun, like you know 0:00:47.440 --> 0:00:52.120 all those you know, the articles and the the text 0:00:52.200 --> 0:00:56.480 avery cartoons, cartoons about the House of the Future and 0:00:56.520 --> 0:01:00.120 the Dog of the Future and you know Tomorrow and 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:02.279 the Jetsons and all the cool stuff we were gonna have. 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:05.440 You know, what the heck happened to that? Also? I 0:01:05.720 --> 0:01:07.600 have a theory, Yeah, I have a theory that the 0:01:07.640 --> 0:01:10.960 future exists on a spectrum, and on one end of 0:01:11.000 --> 0:01:13.600 the spectrum you have the Jetson's where it's the happy 0:01:13.680 --> 0:01:16.720 future with the you know, helpful robots and the flying cars. 0:01:17.000 --> 0:01:19.200 And on the other end of the spectrum, you've got 0:01:19.200 --> 0:01:25.880 George Orwell's nightmarish dystopia where everything is very um locked 0:01:25.920 --> 0:01:28.920 down and and all the technology is used to keep 0:01:28.959 --> 0:01:32.639 the proletariat in line. And that's the spectrum of the future. 0:01:32.840 --> 0:01:34.160 And I kind of want to see by the end 0:01:34.160 --> 0:01:37.080 of this podcast where we think we are on that spectrum, 0:01:37.200 --> 0:01:39.160 Like are we closer to the Orwell or are we 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:42.120 closer to the shiny happy Jetsons. You know, honestly, I 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:44.480 have to say, um, and this is just a personal 0:01:44.520 --> 0:01:47.200 side that I you know, like on the Wegia board, 0:01:47.240 --> 0:01:50.560 when you start wondering whether somebody is moving the thing 0:01:50.600 --> 0:01:53.400 around intentionally, I have the feeling you're going to steer 0:01:53.400 --> 0:01:55.600 this direction in one part, you know way, But I'm 0:01:55.640 --> 0:01:57.360 not going to get there. I will say that. I 0:01:57.400 --> 0:01:59.920 will say there is a middle ground. It's called the terminator. 0:02:00.360 --> 0:02:04.440 So the terminator is in between Orwellian and Jetsons. It's 0:02:04.440 --> 0:02:08.639 actually I think closer to Jetson's because it requires sentient robots. 0:02:08.680 --> 0:02:11.560 All right, then we'll speaking of robots. Yeah, let's say, okay, 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:15.800 we'll go straight to robots. So where where's my personal robot. 0:02:15.880 --> 0:02:18.840 Where's my robot? Butler? You know you want Rosie? I 0:02:18.919 --> 0:02:23.640 want well, you know, I'll settle for Rosie. That's just 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:28.639 that's true. Yeah, it's truly nice. Yeah, where's Rosie? Yeah, 0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:30.720 I don't know. You know, I think the closest thing 0:02:30.720 --> 0:02:33.560 we might have is maybe Asumo Azamo is pretty close. 0:02:33.600 --> 0:02:39.360 Asumo is Honda's robot. It was the neatest thing about 0:02:39.360 --> 0:02:42.600 Osumo recently is that it learned to run before it 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:46.080 before it could just walk really fast. Running is defined 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:49.560 as the moment when you're propelling yourself forward and both 0:02:49.600 --> 0:02:52.560 feet leave contact with the ground for at least to 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:56.160 split second. Yeah, Asimo can is pretty impressive. Yeah, I was. 0:02:56.320 --> 0:02:58.000 By the way, that was one of my first articles 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:00.520 here was how asthma works. You know I knew that. 0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:04.480 Yeah that was before you were here. Yes, but I 0:03:04.480 --> 0:03:08.080 I you know, I've been told many times article you ever, 0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:11.359 I still have the video CD at my desk and 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:13.760 I occasionally watch it because it brings a smile to 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:16.320 my face. Yeah, as the most not much of a butler, 0:03:16.360 --> 0:03:19.160 but he is a pretty cool robot. He's not Yes, 0:03:19.240 --> 0:03:21.360 he can't conduct. He can conduct. He did conduct an 0:03:21.440 --> 0:03:26.480 orchestra um, but he can't make decisions. He can't do 0:03:26.800 --> 0:03:29.280 really anything on his own. You have to pre program 0:03:29.360 --> 0:03:31.600 a lot of information in Asimo for him to work. 0:03:31.639 --> 0:03:35.280 He can recognize certain obstacles that are in his path 0:03:35.440 --> 0:03:37.200 and plan for them and move out of the way, 0:03:37.240 --> 0:03:40.600 and he can climb stairs and things like that, but 0:03:40.640 --> 0:03:44.560 he can't write. But he can't. He can't decide on 0:03:44.720 --> 0:03:47.160 things on his own. He can't make up his mind, right, 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:49.760 So there's there's lack of sentions. We can talk about 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:53.440 other robots too, I mean, there's the room Bore. There 0:03:53.440 --> 0:03:56.880 are these helpful little robots that can do things like 0:03:56.960 --> 0:04:00.920 simple tasks. But again we're not It's kind kind of 0:04:00.920 --> 0:04:06.400 a far cry from Rosie. Yeah, although you know Rosie 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:09.760 vacuum too. Um. You know what I was. I was 0:04:09.800 --> 0:04:13.240 thinking about the robotic critters like Ibo, Sony's Dog and 0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:17.440 Pleio Plio. Yeah, really cool. Who you know it may 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:21.800 not think, but it is pretty scary. I don't advocate 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:24.440 you do this, but if you really want to, if 0:04:24.440 --> 0:04:26.760 you're really twisted enough to do this, go online to 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:31.440 YouTube and there are videos of people torturing Cleo and 0:04:31.560 --> 0:04:37.120 it streams and it's really awful. It's sad and I 0:04:37.160 --> 0:04:41.000 don't I don't know exactly why they threw that in there, 0:04:41.160 --> 0:04:44.200 but it is really depressing. We'll stay staying on the 0:04:44.279 --> 0:04:46.599 robots and trying to move away from well, actually this 0:04:46.640 --> 0:04:49.839 isn't moving away from depressing at all. But um, android 0:04:50.160 --> 0:04:52.960 army robots are those we don't have any of those. 0:04:56.240 --> 0:04:58.680 If you will, UM, we don't really have this. We 0:04:58.760 --> 0:05:02.599 do have military robot that's true, but they look more 0:05:02.680 --> 0:05:07.600 like kind of manage your tanks. Really, you're welcome, thank you, 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:12.400 the manage your tanks. Uh. They tend to be used 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:15.520 mainly for reconnaissance or rescue missions. Um. You send them 0:05:15.520 --> 0:05:18.880 into areas that you know are are dangerous either there 0:05:18.880 --> 0:05:22.920 perhaps land mines or other explosive devices, or the area 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:26.120 you're sending it in as structurally unsound. You wouldn't want 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:28.040 to necessarily send a human being in there, So you 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:30.160 see a robot and instead it's a lot easier to 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:33.640 replace a robot. Um, it's just money, right, it's just money. 0:05:33.640 --> 0:05:35.799 In parts, it's so much better to use a robot 0:05:35.839 --> 0:05:38.040 in those cases. But again, we're talking about robots that 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:41.239 don't really have a lot of autonomous functionality. They can't 0:05:41.560 --> 0:05:43.839 really make decisions on their own. Now you can program 0:05:43.839 --> 0:05:46.560 them where you could program a sentry robot where it 0:05:46.680 --> 0:05:49.400 essentially fires on anything that comes in its field of vision. 0:05:49.760 --> 0:05:52.080 But again, that's not really making a decision. It's just 0:05:52.320 --> 0:05:55.240 recognize a target and fire at it. True. I mean, 0:05:55.240 --> 0:05:59.840 that's what the unmanned aerial vehicles do. They're in missions 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:02.880 in uh in the Middle East, in Iraq and Afghanistan. 0:06:03.120 --> 0:06:05.440 There's actually a group of people here in the United 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:09.000 States who are operating those those they're not robots, I 0:06:09.000 --> 0:06:12.760 guess technically, they're more like remote controlled airplanes. They are 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:15.799 remote controlled airplanes, but I mean they've got the cameras 0:06:15.800 --> 0:06:17.919 on them and somebody's moving them. And that's essentially what 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:23.120 these other devices are doing. The bomb squad robots and 0:06:23.120 --> 0:06:25.400 the military robots that go in and test for land 0:06:25.400 --> 0:06:30.800 mines and stuff like that, their own thing. Yea far 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:33.680 far away from autonomous robots. Some people would say that's 0:06:33.680 --> 0:06:38.120 a good thing, because you know, terminator bad in general. Okay, okay, okay, 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:42.600 flying cars, flying cars. Where's our flying car? Michael Jackson 0:06:42.640 --> 0:06:44.280 was supposed to buy one back in the eighties. Do 0:06:44.279 --> 0:06:47.279 you remember hearing that story? You never heard that story? 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:50.560 Heard other stories about Michael was not one of the 0:06:50.560 --> 0:06:52.599 ones I heard that. One of the stories about Michael 0:06:52.640 --> 0:06:55.040 Jackson one of the you know, I mean it's a 0:06:55.040 --> 0:06:58.400 little crazy, but not like so, one of the stories 0:06:58.400 --> 0:07:00.560 about Michael Jackson was that he was into sit buying 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:03.719 a flying car. There was this a couple of different 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:05.919 inventors at the time. We were talking about the possibility 0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:07.839 of a flying car. It's just around the corner. This 0:07:07.880 --> 0:07:10.960 is the nineties, and Michael Jackson said he wanted to 0:07:10.960 --> 0:07:13.240 be the first person to buy that. Um, you know, 0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:16.120 that's not surprising. You've got celebrities who buy the first 0:07:16.400 --> 0:07:20.360 something of whatever, like Schwarzenegger bought the first civilian hum V. 0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:25.480 So it does happen. And Stevie wonder about the first 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:30.800 UH book reader for the board that was off the 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:34.560 top of your head. Um, so anyway, yeah, it's not unusual. 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:36.600 But the problem is that the flying cars just haven't 0:07:36.640 --> 0:07:40.880 really I hesitated to use the words surfaced. Well, we 0:07:40.960 --> 0:07:43.360 have an article called how flying Cars Will Work by 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:47.560 Kevin Bonsor, and you can look at that. There are 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:52.200 flying cars they used basically they basically used fans, giant 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:55.200 fans kind of giant hover craft. Really is what they 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:58.480 end up being. Yeah, and uh, it's not a not 0:07:58.680 --> 0:08:01.960 a back to the future. I'll flying car not so much. 0:08:02.360 --> 0:08:06.200 You're you're you're hovering. You're not really flying, I'd say, 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:08.280 But you know, George Jetson makes it look so easy. 0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:12.880 And that's the problem is with the flying cars is 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:15.320 the one that we all eventually come to when we 0:08:15.320 --> 0:08:17.440 start thinking about how nice it would be when you 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:19.840 take your flying car to work and you're the only 0:08:19.840 --> 0:08:22.880 one in the air, and if everyone has flying cars, 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:26.600 everyone's in the air, that's right. How do you legislate that? 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:29.320 How do you control that? What happens when one of 0:08:29.320 --> 0:08:32.000 them gives out? When your neighbor is flying over your house? Yeah, 0:08:32.040 --> 0:08:36.319 the entire sky becomes the road. There's no there's no 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:38.800 single pathway to follow. That's one of the things about 0:08:38.840 --> 0:08:41.679 you know, car travel makes it easier to handle than 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:44.440 than flight is because you know you've got you've got 0:08:44.720 --> 0:08:48.120 very limited places where people can go. You can legislate that, 0:08:48.160 --> 0:08:50.600 you can control control that. How do you control it 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:53.520 when everyone's got their own mindage or airplane? Apparently where 0:08:53.520 --> 0:08:57.000 we're going we do need roads, apparently, So I mean, 0:08:57.040 --> 0:09:00.960 if nothing else, we probably need computer controlled vehicles to 0:09:01.000 --> 0:09:05.080 take the human element out of it, because just thinking 0:09:05.120 --> 0:09:10.240 about everyone owning their own flying cars kind of frightening. 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:12.880 There is there are some that are out there, the 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:17.160 M two G Valantern. Have you heard about this. It 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:20.440 looks like a little flying saucer um and I've seen 0:09:20.520 --> 0:09:22.960 videos of it and it's it's pretty neat. And they're 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:27.360 talking about the possibility of manufacturing things on a mass scale. 0:09:27.360 --> 0:09:29.640 It all depends on how many people order them, so 0:09:29.679 --> 0:09:32.560 it's kind of a catch twenty two. They can't make 0:09:32.559 --> 0:09:35.160 them cheaper until people start buying them, but people aren't 0:09:35.200 --> 0:09:39.000 buying them because they're not cheap. So that's probably where 0:09:39.040 --> 0:09:41.080 we're you know, we're kind of gonna be stuck on this. 0:09:41.200 --> 0:09:43.199 I think I think we're just going to see those 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:47.439 as kind of, you know, novelty vehicles, not not like 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:51.360 your regular kind of vehicle. I got another one for you, Okay, 0:09:51.360 --> 0:09:54.920 go ahead shoot weather control because you know, in the 0:09:54.920 --> 0:09:58.280 future we're going to control the weather. There's been some attempts. 0:09:58.880 --> 0:10:02.160 I tried it another article we have on the site right. 0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:04.760 They tried to seed clouds to try and make it rain, 0:10:04.840 --> 0:10:07.480 so that it would rain in distant locations in China 0:10:07.520 --> 0:10:10.439 so that the rain would not eventually make its way 0:10:10.679 --> 0:10:14.280 to Beijing where the Olympics were being held, right right, Yeah, 0:10:14.320 --> 0:10:16.559 I don't know how did that work out, and I 0:10:16.600 --> 0:10:18.640 didn't follow up on it, so I actually don't know. 0:10:19.559 --> 0:10:21.200 We'll have to look into that and see if they 0:10:21.200 --> 0:10:24.960 were actually successful. No, grant, this is very primitive weather control. 0:10:25.280 --> 0:10:27.400 It is. It's sort of semi successful from what I 0:10:27.480 --> 0:10:31.120 understand that the point is to uh seed clouds with 0:10:31.160 --> 0:10:34.760 silver iodide, and essentially what it does, if you know 0:10:34.800 --> 0:10:38.160 a little bit about how rain works, um, the moisture 0:10:38.160 --> 0:10:40.200 in the air and the clouds gets so heavy that 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:41.840 it can't stay up in the clouds anymore and falls 0:10:41.840 --> 0:10:44.079 down its rain. Well, the point is to give the 0:10:45.559 --> 0:10:48.120 water molecule something to condense on so as they go ahead, 0:10:48.880 --> 0:10:53.240 so you make it rain earlier, yeah exactly, and try 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:56.079 and get to rain out before it hits whatever. And 0:10:56.160 --> 0:10:58.880 I mean this idea does have some merit, you could think. Little. 0:10:59.200 --> 0:11:00.920 The problem is that it requires that there will be 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:03.959 moisture in the air already, right, So you can't just 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:06.480 say like, oh, we can solve the drought problem. Now. 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:09.200 You kind of need clouds with moisture in them above 0:11:09.280 --> 0:11:13.280 the drought area before you can actually cause it to rain. Yeah. 0:11:13.679 --> 0:11:16.000 So yeah, we're still ways off on the weather control 0:11:16.080 --> 0:11:19.280 to um lunar base. How are we doing with that 0:11:19.360 --> 0:11:24.120 lunar base? Well, surprisingly, well, we don't have one. That's 0:11:24.160 --> 0:11:27.000 that's the short answer. Shucks, but we're gonna have one. Awesome. 0:11:27.920 --> 0:11:30.120 I know that NASA is really interested in it. NASA 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:31.840 is really interested in it, and and part of the 0:11:31.880 --> 0:11:37.200 reason that President George W. Bush was interested enough to say, hey, 0:11:37.280 --> 0:11:39.920 let's do this and actually get the ball sort of 0:11:39.920 --> 0:11:42.360 semi rolling, is that they want to use it as 0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:44.680 sort of a jumping off point to get to Mars. Yeah, 0:11:44.800 --> 0:11:48.000 it would be kind of a rest stop on the 0:11:48.000 --> 0:11:50.800 way to any other distant location. So when you get 0:11:50.880 --> 0:11:53.679 just past the Moon, you could say you should have 0:11:53.720 --> 0:11:56.480 gone when we're back at the moon, right exactly, like, look, 0:11:57.200 --> 0:12:00.160 we were just at the Moon, why didn't you go 0:12:00.280 --> 0:12:02.640 within Um. Yeah, it's kind of the truck stop of 0:12:02.679 --> 0:12:06.000 the universe, or at least the Solar system. Um. And yeah, 0:12:06.040 --> 0:12:08.680 there's there are NASA does have plans to return to 0:12:08.679 --> 0:12:12.200 the Moon. There's actually an amazing video on NASA's sites, 0:12:12.320 --> 0:12:17.080 very inspirational about about using the Moon as a base 0:12:17.160 --> 0:12:19.040 for that kind of thing, and and just a you know, 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:21.720 a base in general, using it for everything from astronomy 0:12:21.760 --> 0:12:26.640 to other scientific experiments. And um, and it's we got 0:12:26.720 --> 0:12:28.959 to see this video here at How Stuff Works in person. 0:12:29.040 --> 0:12:31.760 We had someone from NASA come to How Stuff Works 0:12:32.000 --> 0:12:34.280 and show this video. This might have been before you joined. 0:12:34.280 --> 0:12:37.320 I'm not sure, I think, um it was. It was fascinating. 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:40.760 The man from NASA showed us the video and it 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:43.920 was really really inspirational. And it is available on NASA's site. 0:12:43.920 --> 0:12:46.520 I highly recommend people check it out, um, because it 0:12:46.559 --> 0:12:50.080 gets you excited about the space program, which is you know, 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:52.600 not not only is it not a small task, it's 0:12:52.600 --> 0:12:55.959 also vitally important for NASA's funding. They have to get 0:12:56.040 --> 0:12:59.440 this kind of excitement, um, in order to get the 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:02.280 interest from Congress to get the funding they need to 0:13:02.280 --> 0:13:04.560 to do these these projects. That's why you start seeing 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:07.920 these private projects pop up too, like the X Prize 0:13:07.720 --> 0:13:11.559 Foundation Google. That's true. You know, they have a contest 0:13:11.640 --> 0:13:15.520 for people teams to send up a lunar rover up. 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:18.560 So this would be a robotic rover, not a not 0:13:18.640 --> 0:13:23.480 a manned mission root. You say, yes, a robot rover 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:27.880 to the moon, to um to prove that private companies 0:13:27.920 --> 0:13:30.880 could do this just as well as a government group could. 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:34.400 And India just launched its first unmanned mission to the moon. 0:13:35.240 --> 0:13:38.079 So um, so there is a renewed interest. So a 0:13:38.200 --> 0:13:44.800 lunar a lunar community is not outside the realm of believability, 0:13:44.880 --> 0:13:47.240 and it will still be a couple of decades off probably, 0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:50.440 but so we're not there yet, but we're still heading there. 0:13:50.480 --> 0:13:52.960 At least we haven't gotten off track. And you know 0:13:53.000 --> 0:13:55.920 you mentioned tech savery cartoons at the beginning. I went 0:13:55.960 --> 0:13:58.920 back and watched one, The Car of Tomorrow. Now we 0:13:58.960 --> 0:14:01.360 should we should stress the these cartoons were meant just 0:14:01.520 --> 0:14:03.840 as kind of poking fun at the idea of what 0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:06.320 the future would look like. Well, that's that's that's true, 0:14:06.320 --> 0:14:08.920 because this was it was actually sort of a reaction 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:11.040 to all the articles about you know, what's going to 0:14:11.080 --> 0:14:13.800 happen in you know, nineteen fifties, American's gonna happen in 0:14:13.800 --> 0:14:16.199 the year two thousand one, right, So these were these 0:14:16.200 --> 0:14:18.680 were meant specifically to poke fun and that they were 0:14:18.760 --> 0:14:20.880 just meant for laughs. They were not meant to be 0:14:20.920 --> 0:14:24.360 taken seriously, and yet there are a couple of them 0:14:24.360 --> 0:14:27.800 that have come true, at least or in the prototype stage. Yeah, 0:14:27.800 --> 0:14:30.800 there was there was one car. One of the cars 0:14:30.880 --> 0:14:34.680 was a a a car that could have rotating tires 0:14:35.200 --> 0:14:39.360 to solve the parallel parking problem, right, so that you 0:14:39.400 --> 0:14:41.640 would you would be driving and then your your tires 0:14:41.640 --> 0:14:44.040 would rotate so that they were now perpendicular and you 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:47.960 would just slide in sideways directly into the parallel parking spot. 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:50.560 I was gonna say, aren't all car tires rotating, well, 0:14:50.760 --> 0:14:53.920 rotating you mean the other right? Exactly? Not not just yes, 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:57.600 they could change change the axis there. They didn't want 0:14:57.600 --> 0:15:00.400 to break it to you that, right, Hey, guess what 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:03.480 we have that? Well, there's a prototype, now, there was. 0:15:03.600 --> 0:15:06.479 It's actually a car concept. It's not even a proto prototype. 0:15:06.520 --> 0:15:09.520 It's called the NASA car concept. And the idea here 0:15:09.600 --> 0:15:12.480 is that the tires would move so that you're no 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:16.320 longer facing forward, they actually face to the left and right, 0:15:16.360 --> 0:15:18.920 so that you could roll immediately to your right and 0:15:19.200 --> 0:15:23.560 parallel park without having to do that nasty little shuffle maneuver. Yeah, 0:15:23.600 --> 0:15:25.680 I hate that actually, Yeah, So I mean that's that 0:15:25.760 --> 0:15:27.240 was one that was just men as a joke in 0:15:27.240 --> 0:15:29.800 this tex Savery cartoon, and yet someone's really working on 0:15:29.840 --> 0:15:33.960 a way of potentially addressing ANA. And there's another one. 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:36.520 There was a folding car where when you get to 0:15:36.520 --> 0:15:38.600 where you're going, it folds up into a tiny little 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:40.840 square and you put in your pocket. Okay, so we're 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:43.240 not really going to that level. I mean, there's some 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:46.520 other issues that we would have to address before that, 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:48.920 but like repealing the laws of physics exactly, that would 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:51.080 be a big one. But there's the idea of the 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:53.720 city car from M. I. T. Which is a folding car. 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:56.040 It's not men as a personal vehicle. You you would 0:15:56.120 --> 0:15:57.800 kind of rent it for your time where you're at 0:15:57.800 --> 0:16:00.280 the car while you're in the city. Rather so you'r 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:02.280 you go to the city, you rent this little car 0:16:02.560 --> 0:16:04.600 and you drive it around. When you return it, it 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:08.360 folds into a line, kind of like the way shopping 0:16:08.360 --> 0:16:11.200 carts fold up to each other. So you would actually 0:16:11.240 --> 0:16:13.040 come up and you take the one on the end. 0:16:13.280 --> 0:16:15.440 Obviously when you rented one, you take whichever one was 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:18.440 on the end, drive it around, drive it into the 0:16:19.200 --> 0:16:21.480 little docking station and it would fold up with the rest. 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:24.120 So again, you know, not as far fetched as tech 0:16:24.160 --> 0:16:26.760 Savery thought, probably, And there was another one. There was 0:16:26.800 --> 0:16:29.840 a boat car, a car that was part car apart 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:33.560 boat that could drive through nasty nasty weather. We could 0:16:33.560 --> 0:16:38.760 talk about the the scuba car. We've got an article 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:42.480 on that. It's a car that's a submarine car, go underwater. 0:16:43.160 --> 0:16:46.280 So again tech Savery, you know what, not that far off, 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:51.840 strangely enough. Yeah, you know, he wasn't the only uh 0:16:51.960 --> 0:16:54.680 animator who was interested in the future. There are quite 0:16:54.720 --> 0:16:57.560 a few Disney pieces on that. As a matter of fact, 0:16:57.560 --> 0:16:59.600 it was a big thing tomorrow Land, you know, in 0:16:59.640 --> 0:17:03.480 disney Land, in Walt Disney World. Um, in Disney The Moon, 0:17:03.600 --> 0:17:08.760 which is opening next year. UM okay, seriously, no, it's 0:17:08.760 --> 0:17:11.560 in the future. I'm gonna start planning my trip. It's 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:17.160 in a giant dome. Anyway. Uh. There was an episode 0:17:17.160 --> 0:17:21.119 of Disneyland, which was the show Disneyland UM called Magic 0:17:21.160 --> 0:17:24.800 Highway USA. And UM, I actually watched this before I 0:17:24.920 --> 0:17:28.280 was pulled down for copyright infringement, called The Road Ahead, 0:17:28.359 --> 0:17:33.560 and it talked about color coded expressways and cars that 0:17:33.640 --> 0:17:35.639 you could basically get in and it would take you 0:17:35.680 --> 0:17:38.879 to where you're going. And um, long time, how Stuff 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:41.439 Works podcast listeners might remember I brought this up on 0:17:41.480 --> 0:17:44.440 a Stuff You Should Know episode in which Josh Clark 0:17:44.480 --> 0:17:46.639 and I talked about his article will there be a 0:17:46.640 --> 0:17:49.359 new kind of taxi cab in the future? Well, Personal 0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:52.520 rapid transport is actually a form of this, and what 0:17:52.520 --> 0:17:55.280 it would do is, uh, it's it's like a little 0:17:55.359 --> 0:17:57.560 car that you get in. Doesn't look like a little car. 0:17:57.600 --> 0:18:00.080 It looks very futuristic, surprise, surprise, but it's on a 0:18:00.160 --> 0:18:02.480 track and you say, okay, I want to go to 0:18:02.640 --> 0:18:04.840 and you give it the dress for work. Well, you're 0:18:04.960 --> 0:18:08.560 the little car gets on the track and it's coordinated 0:18:08.600 --> 0:18:11.680 with all the other cars. Uh. So it basically knows 0:18:11.680 --> 0:18:13.439 not to go too fast or too slow, and it 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:15.040 takes you to where you're going. When you get out, 0:18:15.760 --> 0:18:18.560 you you leave it, and that's it's not really your 0:18:18.640 --> 0:18:21.760 once say personal, it's not yours, but it's basically just 0:18:21.880 --> 0:18:23.560 you and it takes you where you want to go. 0:18:23.920 --> 0:18:26.560 And it would require a lot of infrastructure because you 0:18:26.600 --> 0:18:28.359 can imagine, because it would have to be a track 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:32.560 going to everybody's house and every every location. But it's 0:18:32.640 --> 0:18:34.919 kind of like the Minority Report. I remember there were 0:18:35.119 --> 0:18:37.080 vehicles in the Minority report. They were very much like that. 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:39.760 They would even go up and down buildings. Yeah. Yeah, 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:43.040 but uh, and it's being tested out in a couple 0:18:43.040 --> 0:18:46.000 of places, and that's pretty cool. And apparently it's very 0:18:46.040 --> 0:18:48.320 cost efficient as far as building out the infrastructure. It's 0:18:48.400 --> 0:18:50.640 less than than building light. Right, So when it comes 0:18:50.680 --> 0:18:52.280 to where the hell is my future? At least the 0:18:52.280 --> 0:18:55.679 car stuff is falling into line pretty well. Yeah, some 0:18:55.840 --> 0:18:59.000 floating cities not so much. No, No, I read about 0:18:59.040 --> 0:19:02.120 this a few years ago. Uh. The idea was proposed 0:19:02.119 --> 0:19:05.760 by a man named Norman Nixon of the Freedom Ship, 0:19:05.960 --> 0:19:08.600 which was an enormous ship. It could hold fifty thou 0:19:08.840 --> 0:19:10.960 people and it was a floating community. It's not men 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:12.840 as like a cruise ship or anything like that. You 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:16.000 would actually live there and there'll be workspace and and 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:21.320 living space and um. Visiting his website, Uh, seems they 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:25.119 ran into a few problems. They trusted some people with 0:19:25.200 --> 0:19:29.280 their money that maybe they should not have trusted. Uh, 0:19:29.359 --> 0:19:31.879 And they trusted some engineers that maybe they should not 0:19:31.960 --> 0:19:34.800 have trusted. And at any rate, this dream is still 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:38.639 well within the dream phase. Um, it doesn't sound to 0:19:38.680 --> 0:19:40.680 me like they've made a whole lot of progress. They're 0:19:40.680 --> 0:19:43.119 still determined to try and make it work. But I 0:19:43.160 --> 0:19:45.680 think it's gonna be another few decades before we hear 0:19:45.720 --> 0:19:48.160 anything firm about the freedom Ship. If if it doesn't 0:19:48.200 --> 0:19:51.720 just disappear altogether. Well, the freedom Ship does sound exciting 0:19:51.720 --> 0:19:56.000 and new. I'd like to come aboard. They're expecting me. 0:19:56.320 --> 0:19:58.800 I have one more, but I wanted to ask if 0:19:58.800 --> 0:20:01.840 you had any before I did my final one. Okay, well, 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:04.840 I was thinking of a couple. Okay, yeah, let's go ahead, 0:20:05.000 --> 0:20:07.720 quick ones. I'll make them quick. Um. You know, there 0:20:07.760 --> 0:20:10.320 was this this thing that was proposed a couple of 0:20:10.440 --> 0:20:13.240 hundred years ago called the Mundaneum by Paul Outlet, and 0:20:13.280 --> 0:20:16.200 it would store it would basically be a giant catalog 0:20:16.280 --> 0:20:19.520 of information stored on on you know, essentially punched cards 0:20:19.560 --> 0:20:22.879 catalog cards. Uh, not really punch cards like in the 0:20:23.560 --> 0:20:27.879 later on. Although Van eva Bush, who was one of 0:20:27.880 --> 0:20:30.639 the government's top scientists in the United States for a 0:20:30.680 --> 0:20:34.400 long time, worked with the UH, the Atomic Bomb Project, 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:36.479 and a lot of other different projects. He had this 0:20:36.600 --> 0:20:40.280 idea of a machine called the memex or me max 0:20:40.320 --> 0:20:43.760 I guess um and uh it would be like you 0:20:43.840 --> 0:20:47.159 could scan things in documents in and save them all 0:20:47.200 --> 0:20:49.960 on microfilms. You could have like a giant reader on 0:20:50.000 --> 0:20:53.480 your desk and you could pull up information from anywhere. 0:20:53.600 --> 0:20:56.119 I think I see where this is going. I mean, 0:20:56.160 --> 0:20:59.200 have you heard anything like this, Well, it's what we 0:20:59.440 --> 0:21:02.480 pretty much do our research on now, huh And actually, well, 0:21:02.520 --> 0:21:08.760 except for their expectations, do you research on paper tree killer? No? No, no, 0:21:08.840 --> 0:21:11.760 of course. Uh you all by now who are downloaded 0:21:11.760 --> 0:21:14.320 this podcast on the internet, you know what I'm talking about. 0:21:14.560 --> 0:21:17.200 But there you go. There's an instance in which we've 0:21:17.240 --> 0:21:24.080