Popcorn, Pepsi, Petabytes…

When it comes to technology, reel can become real and fiction can turn into fact, asserts an old-timer.

AD: Hey, guess what? I unearthed a couple of Tintin comics that you had gifted me when I was a kid - Destination Moon and Explorers on the Moon...

BC: Did I? They were so futuristic… Can you imagine a moon landing being described in such detail almost 16 years before man set foot on the moon?

AD: Absolutely!

BC: Talking of the moon, there’s a 1929 silent movie titled Frau im Mond – that’s German for ‘Woman in the Moon’. It introduced the concept of counting backwards – or the countdown, as we know it now – to the world...  

AD: And rocket launches were never the same again. Who would have thought technology would be inspired by entertainment?

BC: Hewlett Packard’s Model 200B audio oscillator was a result of the 1939 Walt Disney film ‘Fantasia’.

AD: Really?

BC: Walt Disney Studios was exploring a novel audio system – Fantasound. And Hewlett Packard was commissioned to create new Oscillators that could handle low frequencies. They would be used to record and test the Fantasound systems. Both the movie and the Oscillators were a big hit....

AD: So that was the earliest avatar of surround sound...

BC: Right. And each time you see a re-run of Avatar on TV, you can’t help but admire James Cameron for his vision. He had to get visual effects software developed to achieve the kind of look he had in mind…

AD: Amazing how people can visualise imagery using technology that doesn’t even exist!

BC: Star Trek is the most popular example of that. There are so many devices used in the series that inspired inventions in the coming decades.

AD: I haven’t seen the 60s version…

BC: They show characters using ear plug-ins that look like the present Bluetooth headsets.  Captain Kirk also uses a flip open communication device that resembles the flip type mobile phone – only mobile phones had not been invented then.

AD: And the flip phones came almost four decades later.

BC: If a forty year period surprises you, what would you say to predictions made 125 years ago?

AD: You’re kidding…

BC: There’s a book titled Looking Backward: 2000-1887, written in 1887 by Edward Bellamy. It describes life in the year 2000, where electricity would be used for domestic chores and talks of ‘direct to home’ music through telephones...

AD: Did he also predict music piracy?

BC: No, he painted a pretty rosy picture of the future, like people retiring at 45...

AD: That’s a fantasy that even Spielberg cannot bring to life...

BC: Taking of Spielberg, remember the Tom Cruise starrer Minority Report? The movie showed personalised ads in 2054...

AD: We’re getting there. When you do an online search, send an email or leave a post in a social networking site, you see ads relevant to the key words you have used.

BC: Perhaps it’s natural that most science fiction fantasies acquire a cult following and soon companies and inventors try to cash in on the craze...

AD: The latest craze is obviously brought about by the man the nation refers to as the ‘Superstar’.

BC: Bullets that don’t need a gun?

AD: No, a website dedicated to him that doesn’t need an internet connection.

BC: How is that possible?

AD: Well, there are two powers in this world that can make the impossible happen – the other’s technology.