The Future That Never Happened

Check out the August 2010 issue of Wired for the feature: Where’s the Future? Will Ferrell’s Tour of Tech That Never Took and take a playful look at the glorious scientific inventions that were supposed to transform the way the world works in the 21st century, but didn’t. The new piece features comic actor Will Ferrell, who wonders why the marvels we were promised haven’t materialized. Indeed, from laser guns to designer babies, it seems the fanciful future that was touted looks a lot more like the pedestrian past.

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THE RETRO-FUTURIST HOTLIST

• Automatic Dog Translator
• Food in a Pill
• Self-Driving Cars
• Nuclear Spaceships
• Edible Fake Beard
• Laser Guns
• Designer Babies
• The Singularity
• Flying Cars — That Go 40 Feet
• WIMAX
• Quantum Computing
• Nanontechnology
• A Birthday Cake With a Burrito Inside
• What We’ve Lost
• Supersonic Airlines
• Ray Gun That Brings Mannequins to Life
• Personalized Medications
• Robot Servants
• Vat-Grown Meat
• Clear Coal
• Chewbacca-Mask Weddings
• Jetpacks
• Fusion Power
• Invisibility
• Underwater City

Also, be sure to visit these related articles and websites:

RetroFuture.com: Where Yesterday’s Tomorrow is Still the Future

Nostalgia for a Future that Never Happened: The Work of Bruce McCall

Augmented Reality as another re-envisioning of the future that never happened