Over lunch today, I dusted off my very first Amazon.com purchase:
Television at a Crossroads by Stefan Marzano et. al.
Television at a Crossroads, published in 1993 (nearly 20 years ago), is a huge enveloping book documenting Philips Design’s exploration of what television will be like in the future.
From television as “tele-lesson” delivery, as ambient information device (like a lamp or clock), as social entertainment device. Much of the exploration depict things we take for granted in 2012 – not from the television – but our banal internet experience.
While the specifics are as quaint and naïve as flying cars the underlying thinking holds up quite nicely. Oh sure – we’re not playing chess through our televisions – but we are playing games with players on the other side of some screen somewhere. Our guitar lessons may not be delivered over a device called a TV – but it’s still the ‘tube.
Marzano and team correctly predicted our lives would be increasingly filled with digital video displays large, small, and everywhere in-between.
Paging through TaaC, I’m reminded of two things:
- we can only describe the future with our current vocabulary and our vocabulary is continually evolving.
- despite their ultimate manifestation, the projected solutions and scenarios are realized.