Would we see the future this clearly?

There simply isn’t anything new in the world.

Over 100 years ago, a French artist named Villemard created a series of prints showing a vision of the future – what life would be like in the year 2000. The pictures are instructive not only for what they got wrong but for what they got right.  We have air-sea rescue but use helicopters not planes and intercontinental travel is by plane not airship, but the concepts were spot-on. Personal flying machines have never really come off; and the electric train from Paris to Beijing doesn’t seem likely to start.

But if this isn’t Facetime or Skype…

And the motorised shoes seem fanciful until you look at www.spnkix.com.

And for the automated tailor there is www.me-ality.com

My final selection is open to interpretation. Could be ebooks. Could be the Internet. Certainly interesting that there’s some poor sod having to turn the wheels of industry by hand.

The full set of 24 cards can be seen here. I wonder if any of our visions of the future will be so accurate?