1955 Predictions for the Future

It is possible that telephones will have miniature television tubes, so that the person at the other end can be seen, perhaps holding a diagram that is pertinent to the conversation or showing off a newborn babe for Grandpa’s examination, back in Iowa.

Mail will probably be dispatched across the country by guided rockets, a civilian application of the guided missile. By this means a letter could span the continent in half an hour.

[…] Wireless transmission of power is possible today, but is not economic. Atomic energy may provide cheap enough power to make it feasible.

[…] The use of microfilm will probably be extended to the point that it will be possible to have the dictionary in a box the size of the telephone, with a lens and spinning device so that time will be saved in looking up words.

-Henry Dreyfuss, Designing for People, 1955