One of my pet peeves inspired me to create this Youtube response video. Why is it that people and the media are constantly in awe of new technology which isn’t new at all? One of the best examples of this is the “humanoid robot”. This is also known as “Animatronic.” It’s something that Walt Disney made a project of creating in the late 1950’s. Animatronics were all the rage at the 1964 World’s Fair and the technology would later be used in movies and furthered by Disney, Jim Henson and many others.

And yet Youtube comments, media reports and others seem to be very very excited about the prospect of such “robots” which are now being shown off, mostly in Asia and are touted as the first step toward a human-robot society, just as they were in 1964. The old animatronics were a bit jerky and unnatural-looking. The new technology is not necessarily any better in that sense and sometimes is worse. And no, these robots are not self-contained or capable of getting up and walking. They may be easier to program or make movements on the fly, thanks to modern computers. But is that really revolutionary? Is it really that much of a breakthrough? I think not.

There are other examples:

Skype: The Chairman of the FCC reportedly said after using it that it would “Change the way we think of telephones.” People have talked about how VOIP will change things and how revolutionary it is. Since 1995 you could make calls over the net if you had a 28.8 modem or better! Net2phone has been around forever. I remember making 100% free calls on dialpad.com in 1999. The codecs are a bit better now. The protocols have become better at not getting hung up because of routers. but IM clients have had voice since version 3 of ICQ

Longwave Radio: I saw a news report about the coal miners trapped underground a while ago. They spoke of how a “professor has recently proposed using a new system which uses lower radio frequencies. It’s been discovered that these can better penetrate the ground, although it cannot carry voice, it might someday…”

Yeah… “Discovered?” When? Around the first world war? Geeze, that’s been used for submarine communications since the U-boat era. And ULF has been used since the 1970’s.

Also…Turn water into hydrogen???? NO CRAP SHERLOCK!

Wireless power? You mean you could charge a phone without needing to physically plug it in? Just by putting it on a charging pad? I remember back when they called that “induction.” It’s actually been known about since the days of Faraday. Although there have been some recent developments in wireless power by “resonant coupling.” The concept of a “power pad” is certainly not new.

Of course, more examples abound…

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This entry was posted on Friday, September 28th, 2007 at 8:44 pm and is filed under Bad Science, Education, History, Humor, media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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