Residential Videophones by 2005
I recently re-visited the Foresight Exchange to see what new predictions had been made for the future, and stubled across the prediction, made in 1995 that by 2005 20% of residential users would have a video phone that they used at least 10 times a year.

What is the most interesting about this claim is that, in 1995, apparently around 80% of people believed this would be the case. By 1996, this number dropped (dramatically, I might add) to about 60%, and then in 2001 to around 25%, and finally to where it sits now at 8%.

I think this nicely illustrates the idea that we often feel we are on the verge of some sort of technological breakthrough, when, for many reasons, the breakthrough is actually quite far away.

Residential Videophones by 2005
- posted @ 4:36 PM