The first public videophone service was opened by the German Reichspost in 1936. Via here.īell Labs developed the Picturephone that debuted at the 1964 World’s Fair. This photograph comes from a magazine article published in 1956 a bout the future of phones talks about audio/video data compression and voice recognition as well as a touchtone, colour videophone that you can watch TV on. FaceTime and Skype before the Invention of the Mobile Phone I f a motorist made a turn, he would have to change the map and find it on his current location.ĭrivers would have to wait a few more decades for the sexy female SAT NAV voice…Ģ. The screen manually scrolls paper maps that are attached to a cable that similar to a modern mechanical speedometer. Ten years later in 1930, we find the original Tom Tom or Sat Nav called the Iter Avto, the world’s first automobile navigator. The map passes the screen in a tempo that depends on the speed of the car. This manual “navigator” resembled a clock and consisted of paper maps and two wooden handles that needed to be scrolled manually. A multitude of scrolls could be fitted in the watch to suit the particular trip the driver fancied taking. Ten years earlier, way back in 1920, you could find the Plus Fours Routefinder. Often these are designs, ideas or inventions that the world just wasn’t ready for at the time and were put on the shelf for decades, forgotten over generations until new innovators and technology could re-discover and revive these historical firsts… 1. Before GPS, behold, the 1920s RouteFinder On my endless internet travels, over time I’ve been accumulating a little compendium of vintage inventions that are way ahead of their time pioneering ideas and early prototypes that evolved into today’s most advanced technology. But if we take a look back, we might find some familiar but curious designs that will make us sit up and take notice. Unless they’re going to finally show us those flying cars we’ve been waiting for since The Jetsons aired on television, we’re hardly batting an eyelid at some of the latest gadgets. In this age of mobile, wireless, digital and w hatchamacallit technology, nothing seems to surprise us nowadays.

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