I usually write about topics like operating systems and computer refurbishing. Today let’s ditch that trivial stuff and tackle something really important like… How have computers and operating systems been portrayed on TV and in films? It’s time we seek our inner geek. With this hearty sign of approval we’re on our way…
(Image: NationalSpatula)
“Sherman, Set the WABAC Machine”
Remember Mr. Peabody and his pet boy Sherman? They co-starred in the popular
TV cartoon shows Rocky
and His Friends and The Bullwinkle
Show.
The former initially aired from 1959 to 1961, while the latter ran from 1961 to
1964. (Hey, you knew it was going downhill when they gave The Moose top billing!)
If you think you’re too young to have seen this show, think again. Rocky and the gang
have been syndicated continuously for 50 years. Quality will tell. As co-star Dudley Do-Right would say, “Have no fear, for Rocky and friends are still here!” Currently they
run on the Boomerang channel on Saturday and Sunday at 6:30 a.m. ET. (Now there’s something worth getting up
for.)
The key plot device in the show was the WABAC Machine (pronounced as the “Way Back Machine”). This is a computer that transports people
back in time. Inevitably, Mr. Peabody and Sherman were transported back
to a famous historical event that was going awry. They would convince
important historical figures to change their actions and thus create
history
as we know it today.
Does it seem strange they would walk into the WABAC Machine itself? Not to the audience of 1960. That’s how big computers were.
The WABAC was probably named after famous 1950s computers whose names all ended in “AC” — the
ENIAC, UNIVAC, and the like. I have a friend who enthusiastically
theorizes that the WABAC machine was actually a secret government
project forked from ILLIAC at the University of Illinois. He kind of
froths at the mouth when he talks about it. (Fortunately, I no longer
have to work with this friend.)
Here are Mr. Peabody and Sherman entering the WABAC Machine to correct the past. Look at those faces. Would you entrust world history to those two dufuses?
(Image: Wikipedia)
Mr. Peabody and his pet boy Sherman enter the WABAC Machine, 1960.
“Danger, Will Robinson!”
Lost in Space
was another popular TV series that ran from 1965 until it was cancelled
in a unbelievable programming error in 1968. Thank goodness it
came back as a comic
book in 1991 and a film
in 1998!
Computers didn’t really figure in a big way in Lost in Space. What most
viewers will remember from this fondly-cherished lost gem is its
humanoid robot. Specifically, the General
Utility Non-theorizing Environmental Control Robot, Model B9:
(Images: ImageyeNation
and The Lost
In Space Page)
“Danger, Will Robinson!”
It seemed like the robot was always waving its arms and saying “Danger, Will Robinson!” to
warn the other characters in the show, who apparently didn’t have its
manual dexterity. This happened so often that this phrase
has become an expression in hacker culture and IT.
Now, here’s the unbelievable part. According to this Wikipedia article,
the robot only said the complete phrase “Danger, Will Robinson!” once on the show. Specifically,
in episode 11 of season 3, entitled “The Deadliest of the
Species.” The robot often gave warnings of “Warning!” and
“Danger!” while flailing its arms, yet it only said
the classic phrase in its entirety once.
I find this really hard to believe.
You
know all those serious studies that compare the accuracy of Wikipedia
to Encyclopedia Britannica? This just goes to show how wrong the Wiki
can be! If this is
indicative of the quality of online encyclopedias, I for one
intend to immediately march into my parent’s basement and confiscate
the EB we used as kids.
Now, about the robot. You know you want one. Admit it! You can buy a full-size replica today with complete animation, control and audio features. For only $24,500 (overseas shipping extra.) What a steal! Gimme two!
While the robot regularly stole the show, there were some
memorable LIS episodes where non-robotic computers figured prominently. My
personal favorite
was “Invaders from the 5th Dimension,” where aliens decide
to capture Mr. Smith and replace their burnt-out computer with his
brain. Mr. Smith, no fool he, cleverly offers them Will Robinson’s
brain instead! Danger, Will Robinson!
Then there was “Cave of the Wizards,” where a computer lures Mr. Smith
into a cave, so that it can take over his mind and body and transform
him into an alien. Wow, TV just doesn’t get any better than this!
(Except maybe in the episode “Kidnapped in Space,” where a computer rules aliens who kill John with a laser beam! (WARNING: PLOT SPOILER –– but don’t
worry, it turns out the androids can control time and… well, you can
figure it out.)
“To Boldly Go Where No Man Has Gone Before”
Dare I go where no man has gone
before? I’m not a Trekkie so I could
get flamed here.
I mean really melted. But the historical importance of the Star Trek
franchise is simply too great to ignore. It means so much to all of us.
(Yes, my Trekkie friend who reviewed this section has already admonished me that the famous phrase was updated to “To boldly go where no one has gone before” in the TNG years.)
Star Trek is a wildly
successful TV and cinema franchise. Not to
mention all the spin-offs in games, books, comics, dolls, clothing, and
you-name-it. On the ST page
at Wikipedia (and we now know how accurate that is, don’t we?), I count 6
different Star Trek TV series
and 11 films. There was even a themed
attraction at Las Vegas for a decade. As John Denver would say, “Far out!“
People devote their lives to trekking. I once encountered enthusiasts dressed in full Klingon battle gear — speaking in Klingon
— while dining in Altamont, Illinois (population 2,283). Apparently
they
were passing through on the way to a convention in Chicago. (They told me you can get a Klingon
Dictionary for your iPhone now, as part of the Klingon Language Suite. As its ad
relates: “Amuse your Vulcan
friends and confound
your Romulan adversaries by discussing your strategy for galactic
dominance in Klingon!”)
What’s cool about the Trek universe is that we’re not talking about
just computers or robots here. We’re actually talking operating systems!
That you can actually run on your own computer!!
Let’s back trek for a minute and get all this straight. LCARS
is the operating system depicted in the Star Trek TV series and films.
It stands for the Library Computer
Access/Retrieval System. Here’s how LCARS is depicted in the 2002
film, Star
Trek Nemesis:
(Image: Wikipedia)
Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Lieutenant Commmanders Data and Geordi La Forge
View LCARS Output
The LCARS GUI was designed by Michael
Okuda, who went on to co-author the immortal Star
Trek TNG Technical Manual
and do important design work for the series. Unfortunately his
career deteriorated and he eventually ended up working for NASA, where
he
got stuck with the prestigious NASA Exceptional Public Service Medal. Probably pinned on him by the
President himself. Tough luck, Michael!
For those of you who can’t wait to make LCARS your screen background,
here’s LCARS wallpaper. (Shoot me for asking, but how is it that a
24th century computer screen has such a 1970’s color scheme?)
(Image: Wikipedia)
Enterprise-D Wallpaper … Enjoy!
By now I imagine you just can’t stand it… you want to run LCARS on
your computer!! You have several choices. One is LCARS24,
which runs on DOS and early Windows versions. From the project website: “LCARS 24 lets you turn an old TrueColor
laptop into an LCARS (Starfleet-style) musical or talking alarm clock
and calendar that is also an agile 32-bit DPMI system shell with many
bundled LCARS programs …”
How cool is that? Your junk 1998 laptop goes Starfleet! Here’s a sample
LCARS24 screen:
(Image: Wikipedia)
The LCARS24 Screen with Calendaring
A more current option is the LCARS x32
project. LCARS x32 is a “...
24th Century replacement for the Windows desktop… that transforms
your Windows based PC into a 24th Century LCARS terminal.”
Somebody broke the Microsoft monopoly in only three centuries?? I find
that hard to believe. Make it so! (Downloads are free here.)
One other thing about Star Trek.
Ever wonder about those handheld computers they’re always checking?
They’re called PADDs,
or Personal Access Display Devices.
PADDs are used by Starfleet, the
Andorian Imperial Guard, the Bajoran Militia, the Klingon Empire, the
Romulan Star
Empire, the Vulcan High Command, and even in cultures as distant as the
Delta Quadrant. Even the Cardassians have them. So you can call
Kim, Kourtney, or Khloé if you’re on Mars and need a hot date. (No
disrespect intended, I actually don’t know! which
of these charming young women may be married… at the moment.)
Finally, let’s not overlook the several iPad apps
and interfaces for the LCARS experience. Turns out your iPad was really
a PADD and you just didn’t know it.
There is so much more to rave about Star Trek, but space is limited (in this
column, not in the Final Frontier in which the Enterprise romps!). So with my deep personal
regrets, we go on to our last film classic.
“Modernization Isn’t Everything!”
We’ve covered the heavyweights, so now here’s a forgotten gem: The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes. This laugh machine came out in 1969, with a young Kurt Russell
in the lead role as Dexter Riley. Dexter is a “less than average” —
translation: nerdy — college student who gets zapped when tiddling
with a mainframe computer. He absorbs the computer’s characteristics
and gains encyclopedic knowledge. (Apparently IBM mainframes were just giant repositories of facts.) This helps Dexter and his
classmates win quiz competitions but leads to friction with the shady
businessman who donated the computer to the college.
Catch the groovy introductory animation clip over at our National Cultural Archive (informally referred to as Youtube). It’s a real period piece.
Kurt Russell felt so good about the Dexter Riley character he went on to play him in the film sequels Now You See Him, Now You Don’t (1972) and The Strongest Man in the World (1975). The excitement all takes place at fictional Medfield College, also the location in immortal flicks like Flubber, Son of Flubber, and The Absent-Minded Professor. Did you have that much fun in college? (Should’a gone to Medfield, should’a gone to Medfield …)
(Images: IMDB)
The adventures of Dexter Riley. Being a human computer was only the beginning…
A classic like this deserves a remake, and so it was, in 1995.
This time 90’s teen heart-throb Kirk Cameron
became the human computer. It was only a made-for-TV movie, but don’t worry,
I hear you can still get it on DVD. Who says America doesn’t
manufacture anything anymore?
That’s all the excitement I can handle in one article. We’ll continue this theme in my next OS News article.
Until then, prospective Medfield students, your assignment is to list your favorite computers in film and TV.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
– – –
Howard Fosdick (President, FCI) is an independent consultant who
supports
databases and operating systems. Read his other articles and download his free PDF guide How To Tune Up Windows here. You can reach him
at contactfci at the domain
name of sbcglobal (period) net.
Disclaimer: This article is intended to be humourless humorous and comments should not be taken seriously.
Wikipedia unfortunately seems to be edited in a way, that interesting information seems to get lost.
By luck I have seen interesting information, and discussion there, only to see it had disappeared the next time I was there.
Informationmanagement of that kind, needs improvement.
The information I was interested in, was religious. If you happen to be a religious hacker reading this, you will probably find more relevant information, on the url, in my profile.
Uh,fascinating…and this relates to the topic at hand exactly how?
Edited 2011-09-13 01:37 UTC
Religious trolls, who would’ve thought. Stick to conservæpedia, and be done with it. Wikipedia will melt your brain. It contains evil things like “evolution” (the macro variety!) and claims the age is over 6000 years old!
LOL!! Come on!! We ALL know the earth is only 6,000 years old!! Just follow the genealogy in the bible!!
And we know the bible is true! It says so right in the bible!!
Checkmate, atheists!!
Ahem…
The article put me in a funny mood 😉
–The loon
Very off-topic:
Though I do see this circular fallacy in science too. We have this dogma called logic (the foundation of science), which is a hard fact, because…it’s logical.
…and we verify (or, more accurately, we try to falsify) logical, etc. conclusions against an actual Real World(tm).
Edited 2011-09-13 16:02 UTC
There are many more groups on the planet than “Fundamentalist Christians” and “athiests”, of course… 🙂
Yep. That some people blindly attack a strawman like this.. I think we see people of similar cunning on the internet all the time.
My information is all about the mind, and that how it is divine.
This information is though often replaced with commonly accepted misunderstandings in religion, on wikipedia though.
Or even worse, completely fabricated trash like this:
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jabir_ibn_Abd-Allah
“Both of the bodies were said to be fresh and intact while their open eyes were said to issue forth such divine light that the spectators’ eyes were dazzled”
Edited 2011-09-17 11:38 UTC
Commonly accepted “misunderstandings” of any given time is the true face of religions; it’s what makes them, what forms their actual dynamics, what drives religions as popular social movements.
Their true living versions are the frakked up versions; not the niche forms which stem from elevating the confirmation bias to art form by some statistically insignificant self-absorbed & presuming, self-styled thinkers, adepts of mental masturbation. The latter are a background noise without much of any significance (well, occasionally what one random one utters – in the sea of others – might stick, one way or another, in very evolved form, via societal dynamics beyond his real control or even grasp)
And the more we learn about our bodies – the more we study them and one of their manifestations, the mind – the more we realize how the differences with “lower” ones are quantitative. Even most of something so “obvious” to us as free will appears (from research) to be post-hoc rationalization rather than actual free will; a modus operandi which had an especially strong grip on us when most of the present core mythologies were being formed.
But yet we would have many, many more if not for “Christians”, among few, of course… :p (almost starting with Gnostics – unfortunately for them, following the true deity and uncovering the real nature of the mainstream Christian one as an usurper, the Demiurge, is a dangerous thing to do ;p )
Edited 2011-09-19 23:47 UTC
Plenty of LCARS apps on Youtube…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXqMKLOk1qo&feature=related
I would say, If MS wants to kick some Ipad ass,
they might consider LCARS interface + voice response for their tablets.
Metro UI is already quite similar to LCARS – very textual, with large uniform areas of colour on a mostly black background, scrolling around. Not quite the same… but remember, LCARS is mostly a film prop meant to look good, be impressive for the audiences, that’s its role.
It’s kinda similar with voice communication. It’s a tool of cinematography, a way for actors to… act. Seeing somebody just silently typing or clicking or swiping in the background would quickly get old.
(plus, the curious thing with voice communication in scifi is that the computers, typically, are able to almost always understand complex meanings of often vague commands, and do virtually everything by themselves / via automated systems …so what the crews are really for? ;p )
Likewise with scifi video conferencing – primarily, a way to act, to depict the story in a way conductive to mass-consumed video medium. Same with whole depicted technology / physics / world, really.
Edited 2011-09-13 16:30 UTC
There’s an interesting list of computers shown in movies.
http://starringthecomputer.com/
A famous example is the SAGE (AN/FSQ-7), after it finished its service in the US Air Force. It visits Columbo, Time Tunnel, Battlestar Galactica and other known and unknown TV series or movies.
Also note: The more advanced a computer is, the slower its output appears; also applies to LCARS. 🙂
That happens in real life too. (eg Win2000 -> XP -> Vista)
He said *advanced* computers.
(joke alert.. couldn’t resist today)
My favourite computer-related scene in a movie would be the scene in “Wayne’s World” where Garth meets a fairly geeky-looking woman holding a large book, and he says (awestruck) –
“Whoooa – a **UNIX** manual!”
In that dino-movie, when John Hammond’s grandkids were trying to the park’s system online, the girl was at a console and she said “It’s a UNIX workstation. I know this”, then the point-of-view shifted the monitor with a 3D virtualization of the park buildings as she navigated her way to activate the security. I don’t think it helped push familiarity with UNIX to the audience in general though.
That was a cool scene, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFUlAQZB9Ng&feature=related, showing SGI File System Navigator experiment.
Looks like SGI still has fans in the industry. In a Korean series called “Iris” the bad guys use Irix and the good guys something OS/2-ey (or DOSey):
http://i51.tinypic.com/20r3bkx.png
http://i53.tinypic.com/ic2z9v.png
http://i56.tinypic.com/1zcprwn.png
http://i52.tinypic.com/2arqt2.png
http://i53.tinypic.com/21kgqi0.png
Notice the vaguely Uplinky interface of the first computer and the “Comanche” directory on the second, full of appropriately named files like MISSION.DTA. My guess is someone was playing “Comanche: Over the Edge” in the coffee break
Edited 2011-09-14 19:52 UTC
That program was called FSN, and ran on irix… You can actually download a copy if you have an old sgi box to run it on.
Yes, just the pure binary. When few years ago I’ve got my hands on a SGI Infinite Reality 2, I had not the occasion to try it.
Somebody did a Linux version of it, with an ancient version of OpenGL and Gtk 1.x.
It wasn’t really a visualisation of buildings; just a 3D view of folders and files hierarchy (only somewhat analogous to physical layouts of the park)
One can download a free software clone of fsn, running on pretty much any *nix ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_System_Visualizer ), one which seems (hardly anybody can directly compare it with fsn) more polished and somewhat useful – say, when trying to quickly get the idea about sizes of directories (not like 2D graphs aren’t probably more practical also in this case)
Not the focus of the movie(this requires ignoring a BJ from Demi Moore) was the VR file system in ‘Disclosure’. Pretty cool for the mid ’90’s.
This reminds me of David Adams’ What We Can Learn From MovieOS article.
http://www.cracked.com/article_19160_8-scenes-that-prove-hollywood-…
All the most important computing scenes, ever.
That’s a fun read! Thanks!
It misses a couple of my favs moments. “War Games” was actually pretty good until computers started exploding! It also has the classic quote “Goddammit, I’d piss on a spark plug if I thought it’d do any good!”
Hackers is/was dreadful – I say that as someone who was in it! Still, fun party for 3 days.
Terminator 3’s “There’s enough C4 to take out 10 supercomputers!” still has me stumped to this day!
Hackers has Angelina Jolie (naked!), and the P6 (with PCI)! ‘nough said.
and a laptop with 4 million bytes of ram!!
Angelina == good
K6 == good
Hackers, the movie == not so much
Edited 2011-09-13 14:29 UTC
Haha, well, tastes differ, I remember enjoying it despite its obvious stupidity. Cult ftw!
True and at least it wasn’t as mind-bogglingly bad as Antri-trust/Conspiracy.com. Holy mother of god was that ever bad.
I would have assumed everyone’s favourite statement of that movie would be: “Gentlemen, I wouldn’t trust this overgrown pile of microchips any further than I can throw it.” (General Beringer). This wisdom should be applied to modern computers more often. 🙂
Wow, that was awesome. I pity the guys who had to animate that pointless IRC-boat 3d holographic whatever, i bet they were facepalming all around…
The movies/tv shows from the 80-90s I could understand. It was all still -relatively- new and exciting back then to most people. But this CSI or NCIS? Are they trying to insult the viewer or what?
“Detective, I’m 30-years old, I live with my mother and I have a Captain Kirk costume in my closet.”
At least they got something right.
Does Holly from Red Dwarf qualify as an OS?
He / She also has a command-line interface.
Holly is a genius!
See… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_OCa8wSg8g
Orac must win the award for best spoken supercomputer yet sharp supercomputer ever.
CSI is a major offender when it comes to fake operating systems.
Yeah, you’d think it’s easier to make a mock-up using an existing OS, but no…
There is that rumor floating around that writers of CSI and similar shows are in a pissing contest about who can sneak the most ridiculous technobabble bullshit into their respective shows.
So far I think CSI is winning with “GUI interface using Visual Basic” [1] and “corneal imaging” [2].
[1]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkDD03yeLnU
[2]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uoM5kfZIQ0
Don’t be so rude. What you disrespectfully call “most ridiculous technobabble bullshit” is common terminology in modern IT marketing! 🙂
Yeah, sure. I’m going to create a blackwhite IP offer of 192.168.2 now in order to commit an RFC based hyperbolic transport location for Shloynts & Froymbrowner ambulance interprocess access level telemetry… hey, I can do this all day, maybe I should write scripts for CSI: Stasi or CSI: Wanne-Eickel. 🙂
CSI is a major offender to when it comes to everything sciency. The real tragic is that so many take the it serious when it is really a rather unrealistic sci-fi show with fantasy elements springled in for good measure.
“Independence Day” Apple Laptop hacking into an advanced Alien “mainframe”
… oh yea… thats believable…
The Apple TV commercial … Apple Saves the world
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HV2CFBAWD_U
Edited 2011-09-13 16:07 UTC
Has everything – gibberish technology, pointless plot A MTX512!!! and Kelly LeBrook who introduced a lot of people to puberty.
But basically… utter nonsense.
How can you miss the movie “The Net” (1995) with Sandra Bullock as a software engineer? One click and you have total control of the internet!!!
I still have never met a software engineer that looks like that.
You need to find a better place of employment, dude. Believe me, they’re out there. 🙂
Man Lost in Space sucked bad, how could anyone watch this crap, a cheap Star Trek if you ask me – the acting was unbearable.
Anyway why all the focus on the 1960s? The 80s had some truly memorable computer geek films and I am sure you and most of your readers will recall that decade with much fondness.
Perhaps you could do a part two?
Here are a few 80s computer geeky films I can recall from memory in order of geekyness.
Electric Dreams
War Games
The Last Starfighter
Tron
Short Circuit
Quality watches all of them.
LiS was out a year before Star Trek. CBS passed on ST because they had LiS, it wound up at NBC. Anywho, the first three seasons of LiS had a high budget, but when rating dropped, so did the budget, which led to the show being canceled.
Sure, it got a bit campy, but so did everything in that era – including Batman and Star Trek. Come on! The Enterprise fought a giant amoeba!
Why not mentioning this scene from Star Trek in which Scott was trying to talk an old computer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5e1vfaST2I
There was actually an LCARS theme for Enlightenment E16, that was pretty cool. Back in 2006 it was definitely the best theme I’d ever seen.
This article isn’t complete without Battlestar Galactica. Among other things BSG made us wonder whether or not Artificial Intelligence can lead to a new life form and how us organic beings will deal with that. The remade series had such an impact that if you type about:robots in your firefox address bar you get to see a reference to that show.
In this regards, also see “Colossus: The Forbin Experiment” and “Demon Seed”.
The PC scenes in the CSI tv series is so unrealistic it almost spoils it for me.
You gotta do a Part 2. This time include Tron, Battlestar Galactica, The Last Starfighter and the Whopper from War Games. You’re missin all the best stuff!
well, I think it was a book, a radio serie, a movie, television.
Hitchhikersguide to the galaxy is certainly missing.
Douglas Adams had some great imagination.
Many manuals start or continue with: “Don’t panic”.
Also fun to quote with a sentence of his book. Especially when people never read te book at all.
Too bad there has never been a movie of one of Terry Pratchetts books (oh sorry no computers in it….)
Not quite a movie, but I watched this TV film from Sky1 on MegaVideo and can attest that it was quite good :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Colour_of_Magic_%28TV_film~*~@…
This may not relate to any specific computers in film scene but I feel the need to bring this up.
Am I the only one who gets annoyed when a “hacker” in a movie breaks a 128 bit of 256 bit encryption in mere seconds? I know it’s for the sake of narrative but that still doesn’t stop me from getting annoyed.
coyote_spirit,
“Am I the only one who gets annoyed when a ‘hacker’ in a movie breaks a 128 bit of 256 bit encryption in mere seconds? I know it’s for the sake of narrative but that still doesn’t stop me from getting annoyed.”
Remember the scene from swordfish where John Travolta threatens to kill a hacker if he cannot break into the FBI (or whatever agency it was) in a minute or so?
Yeah, but come on, he’s getting a blowjob while breaking it. Also, there’s a crazy criminal pointing a large gun at his head. Who wouldn’t succeed under those circumstances? Gritty realism, I say.
Soulbender,
“Yeah, but come on, he’s getting a blowjob while breaking it. Also, there’s a crazy criminal pointing a large gun at his head. Who wouldn’t succeed under those circumstances? Gritty realism, I say.”
Damn, I must be doing it all wrong.
Sadly I am old enough to remember my first encounter with an electronic calculator. I thought it was fantastic and sat and calculated square roots for an hour. Sometimes I have a very strong sense of living in the future, a future that turned out to be both tediously similar to the past whilst also being unexectadley different in so many ways and mostly nothing like the way the movies guessed it would be.
Hm, it might seem that you approach the world through the lenses of your atypical experiences as a rule / routine / a matter of practice? I am what you would uncomplimentary call a “brat” or such …and yet I also remember such encounters, experiences. In fact the “first electronic calculator” (for me) is a dozen or so meters away right now (unfortunately not 100% working, but hopefully an overdue cleaning of tarnished contacts will do the trick when I finally get myself to doing it)
2m from me, a completely mechanical typewriter (Groma Kolibri, still actively used a decade ago; electric ones barely having a chance before the advent of PCs & printers). It was even easy to hang on to one mechanical drum adder (mostly working; just needs quite a bit of strength to operate, so what it really needs: disassembly, crud removal, and few drips of new oil)
And this all in a place which was, also at the time, one of the more prosperous; majority of humanity now would probably love to live in such place then, what it was then (and BTW, ~70% of them are mobile subscribers, 20+% listens on their mobiles to music; this is the dominating type of digital audio player, after very short few years of perturbations around dedicated contraptions)
Generally, yeah, it’s typical of popculture to be quite wrong when predicting the future (and that’s the case over the ages – how many false predictions, also of “ultimate” / world ending magnitude, there were in the ultimate artefacts of popular culture: some of the most lasting and all-encompassing social orgs & movements around?)
Edited 2011-09-20 00:18 UTC
Please, another article but this time covering more recent movies. Minority Report, Matrix, etc!