Magnum, P.I.‘s Tom Selleck narrated some commercials for AT&T, and in the process, voiced some pretty accurate technological predictions.
In 1993, communications provider AT&T produced a series of advertisements predicting futuristic technology. The commercials were a series of vignettes voiced over with the dulcet tones of Magnum, P.I. DVICE collected all these ads into one convenient video, showing just how far technology has advanced in the intervening 17 years.
These commercials predicted Kindles, iPads, Netflix, and GPS systems. They foresaw the use of electronic toll collection and teleconferencing. I can’t yet “open a door with the sound of [my] voice,” and my wallet doesn’t hold my entire medical history, but I know someone is working diligently on the latter, if not the former. To “learn special things form far-away places” could describe the internet at large, really, but the commercial’s specific example is growing commonplace.
I still don’t understand being able to tuck a baby in from a phone booth: What’s a phone booth?
