A History of XR Cross Reality Part 3 of 6
1910 - 1965
In 1910, the artist Jean Marc Cote, is commissioned to create artwork for cigar boxes showing humanity in the year 2000. Some of these predictions hit remarkably close the mark.
Music performed pressing buttons and dials.
Flying firefighters. No? You do know that departments are incorporating drones, right?
Maids that run robots that do the cleaning.
Homes heated by the never-ending glow of the radium lamp.
Schools transformed by just listening-learning.
Now educators and I can have a field day with just this image. I would ask a group of teachers-to-be to analyze what was correct in this prediction and what was incorrect. We could go on and on. The main idea here to get is that learning was going to transformed to occur only by listening. How ridiculous, right? And yet, three years later in real life...
“Thomas Edison famously predicted in 1913 that "Books will soon be obsolete in schools" - but not because books were to be ground up by a knowledge mill. Rather, Edison believed that one of the technological inventions he was involved with and invested in - the motion picture - would displace both textbooks and teachers alike.
"I believe that the motion picture is destined to revolutionize our educational system and that in a few years it will supplant largely, if not entirely, the use of textbooks," Edison asserted in 1922. "I should say that on the average we get about two percent efficiency out of schoolbooks as they are written today. The education of the future, as I see it, will be conducted through the medium of the motion picture… where it should be possible to obtain one hundred percent efficiency." (Watters, 2015)
From 1913 to 1931, we have the age of radio. By 1931, television was demonstrated at the Iowa State Fair. Just two years after (so quick if you think about it) that the University of Iowa started to experiment with this medium. The first broadcasts were only video, no audio. Because televisions were scarcely available commercially and the signal was weak, users who could receive the signal tended to be with five miles of the campus and had built their own TVs from parts. If you wanted to hear sound along with the video, you had to tune in your radio at the same time. Descriptions of the image produced in these rudimentary TVs are actually scary (colors, shapes, very fuzzy). But it is a start!
Professors quickly figured out that they could broadcast radio from home and then did so. Students still had to travel to campus and sit in seats to listen. The next innovation was two way radio so students could ask questions of the professor.
1957 The Sensorama by Morton Heilig is considered the first cross reality machine. It provided visuals, sounds, vibrations, and smells.
1958 I cannot resist including this image of an electric typewriter because use of text is a common theme that carries through our history of XR and I do believe it will continue into the future. What is interesting is the boast that her grades will improve by 38% if you buy her an electric typewriter. Her grades will improve in what...typing class?
1960 No history mentioning futurism would be complete without mentioning Walt Disney.
In addition to his many other achievements, Walt Disney was a visionary futurist and he did not stop with just dreaming; he set in place plans to create the future. This particular image is associated with his plans for EPCOT, his Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow. I’d like to point out that this image is from 1960 when Walt Disney was also planning his displays for the 1964 World’s Fair (what would become It's A Small World and The Carousel of Progress). Walt never lived to see EPCOT open but his flair for looking into the future appeared in the rides as I will show in a future article. At this point, we note that he looked at the future with ideas about community, centralization of services, and the importance of neighborhoods.
Also in 1960, the first videoconferencing was conducted. This gives us the sharing of live video and audio.
1965 This paleo futuristic cartoon seems to predict a dire future of robots giving instruction.
But look closely at the prediction: “Compressed speech will help communications. From talking with pilots, to teaching reading. Future school children may hear their lessons at twice the rate and understand them better!”
Did they get that wrong? Ever noticed this choice at YouTube?
1966 Have another cartoon prediction.
“By 2016, man’s intelligence and intellect will be able to be increased by drugs and by linking human brains directly to computers.”
Well, my intellect is increased by coffee. I won’t speak for you.
Did you arrive here without reading Part 1 and 2? Here are the links:
#Reality #CrossReality #MixedReality #VirtualReality #AugmentedReality #VirtualWorlds #Design #Transmedia #XR #VR #AR #ARVRinEdu #EdTech #Innovation #Change #WaltDisney #Epcot #ProgressCity #JeanMarcCote #CigarBox #Year2000 #PaleoFuture #Sensorama #ThomasEdison
This article originally posted on LinkedIn on November 29, 2021.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/history-xr-cross-reality-part-3-heather-dodds-ph-d-