8 Things That Make Us Believe

 That the Future is Now

By Mike Diez

What a time to be alive! Seriously, for those of us who have been around since the rotary dial phone, it’s no small wonder to us that we now carry our phones around in our pockets and that communicating to one another is just a matter of pushing buttons. Here are 8 things we hope you kiddos never take for granted, because these things are wonders of human engineering:

8. Cellphones

Starting out its life as a cumbersome, ice-shaver-looking machine, the cellular phone has shrunk itself to as small as 3 inch, to its current ideal size of four to sixinches. The fact that you can carry around a phone in the pocket of your jeans and get connected 24/7 was unthinkable 20 years ago. Not only is it compact, you can also use it as a camera, television, music player, personal assistant—nearly every damn thing except make you coffee or cocktails. Maybe that will come 20 years from now?

7. Flat screen TVs

The resolution being offered nowadays by television-producing companies are mind-bogglingly high that you can actually see the pores on the faces of actors on the screen. If you need proof that the resolution today is so much higher than 10 years ago, just look up videos of Michael Jordan era NBA, or footage of Miami Vice episodes. Compare those with 1080 standard being offered these days and you’ll wonder how we got by with the pixels back then. And the resolution keeps on getting higher! (Don’t get us started on 3D.)

6. Toys

Human feats of engineering have seeped into everything into our society, and that includes toys. From the incredible details on today’s model kits to the hyper realistic faces on toys—Toys!—kids these days are incredibly lucky to have these on the shelf. Maybe in the future we’ll have self-aware robots? Oh, wait.

5. Internet

Seriously, think of something. Anything. Even the most ridiculous subject you can come up with. 99.99999 percent, it will be on the internet. That stuff is insane. It’s like some weird parallel universe we now constantly check into. There’s probably a version of you in there that never grows old. In fact, you probably know of somebody who died yet still exist as a digital version of themselves in the ‘net. True story.

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